


The Dolphins of Pern: Rediscovering Something That Should Never Have Been Lost

by silveradept



Series: The Suck Fairy's Greatest Hits: The Dragonriders of Pern [18]
Category: Dragonriders of Pern - Anne McCaffrey
Genre: Ableism, Arbitrary Skepticism, Background Alemi/Kitrin (Dragonriders of Pern), Background Aramina/Jayge Lilcamp (Dragonriders of Pern), Child Abuse, Classism, Colonialism, Commentary, ESL Stereotypes, Gen, Matchmaking, Meta, Neglect, Nonfiction, Past Abuse, Randian Morality, Silly Animals, Speciesism, Swearing, child endangerment
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-03
Updated: 2017-10-19
Packaged: 2021-03-03 19:07:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 31,250
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24700543
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/silveradept/pseuds/silveradept
Summary: A commentary read with excerpts of The Dolphins of Pern, a novel of the Ninth Pass of Pern, part of the Dragonriders of Pern novels.
Relationships: Readis II & The Dolphins of Pern
Series: The Suck Fairy's Greatest Hits: The Dragonriders of Pern [18]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1663699
Comments: 7
Kudos: 3





	1. A New Perspective, finally?

**Author's Note:**

> This is the Director's Cut of meta originally posted at [Slacktiverse](https://slacktiverse.wordpress.com).
> 
> Content notes for each chapter are in their respective posts, and all content notes in the work are in the tags.
> 
> Director's commentary will be rendered _[in a manner like this.]_

Last time, the future came to pass, the Red Star was permanently adjusted, Thread was xenocided, Robinton died, and AIVAS committed suicide before it would face the consequences of its actions.

So, naturally, we're starting a new book. (It's 1994 at this point of publication.) And the author, now that the main work is officially done, can focus on writing more books that explore side stories and things that were just details.

Like the dolphins, who have been apparently patiently waiting in the background through all of these tales of dragons, doing what they can to help people. It's finally your time, fellow mammals. Let's get going.

**The Dolphins of Pern: Prologue and Chapters I and II: Content Notes: ESL Stereotypes, Silly Animals**

The prologue starts from the perspective of the dolphins! Yay! A little over one hundred years after Landing, two dolphins are ringing the bell that normally summons the humans to see them. There's nobody there to feed them or listen to what they have to say, and the dolphins are worried that the humans have all died out, possibly based on the plague (that was mentioned in First Fall). There is a mention of a Dolphin Contract to follow ships and make sure the men on board don't fall over without a dolphin nearby to help rescue them. Plus, a nice chunk of information about dolphin culture:

> Kibbe was one of those who had been chosen to serve time up near the northwestern subsidence, where lived the Tillek, chosen of all the pods for her wisdom. The name given the pod leader was also traditional. He had been taught, as had other dolphin instructors, why dolphins had followed humans to this world, far from the waters of Earth, where they had evolved: the chance to inhabit clean waters of an unpolluted world and live as dolphins had before technology (he had learned to pronounce that word very carefully) has spoiled the Old Oceans of humankind. He knew, and taught this despite the astonishment it caused, that dolphins had once walked on land. That was why they were air breathers and were required by Nature to surface to inhale oxygen. He listened to tales so old not even those who had taught the Tillek knew their origins: that dolphins had been the messengers of the gods, escorting those buried at sea to their special "underworld" place. As dolphins considered the seas to be underworld, this caused some confusion. The humankind underworld was where "souls" went--whatever "souls" were.

...so it is possible, then, to develop a system of beliefs that are plausible and make internal sense, even if they aren't fully accurate to the reader. What I want to know is why the author waited until a book about dolphins to demonstrate the capability.

There's a certain amount of echo here about the Silly Animals that [Ana Mardoll is unhappy about in the Narnia books](http://www.anamardoll.com/2013/01/narnia-talking-animals-should-be-seen.html), where the otherwise intelligent dolphins have beliefs or somehow need to have humans ruling them because they couldn't do it in their own, but the dolphins are more capable than their Narnian counterparts. They teach their young the names of the dolphins who made the trek across the stars, and sing it while they travel. And while they don't understand why the humans needed to sleep for fifteen years to make the journey (because dolphins do not apparently require sleep), they repeat the History (that includes the gift of human speech to dolphins) they have learned.

_[There is a reason to why the dolphins have the supersitions and beliefs and the humans don't. After all, the colonists supposedly ditched all of those primitive beliefs in starting their colony on Pern, and their descendants have never brought anything like that, no, certainly not, pay no attention to the cult of the dragonriders. So as a shorthand for telling us that the dolphins aren't as good or as smart or as culturally advanced as the humans (so that the dolphins continue to look up to the humans as the bestest ever for giving dolphins speech and mentasynth), the dolphins having folk beliefs is the chosen vehicle for this. Anyone whose hair is rising because of the similarities to how colonists and enslavers justified their actions by claiming the enslaved were primitive or not as advanced as the people doing the enslaving, despite the clear evidence that this was not the case, you've got the right of it.]_

We also learn the specifics of the contract a little later.

> Dolphins would protect humans on or in the water to the best of their abilities, in whatever weather and unsafe conditions, even to the giving up of dolphin life to save the frailer humans; they would apprise humans of bad weather conditions, show them where the schools of preferred fish were running, and warn them off sea hazards. The humans promised, in return for these services, to remove any bloodfish that might attach themselves to dolphin bodies, to float any stranded dolphin, to heal the sick and treat the wounded, to talk to them and be partners if the dolphin was willing.

I'd say the humans really got the better end of that deal. I wonder when it was negotiated, and how long the term of the contract was for. The dolphins are probably more than due a rewrite at this point.

There's mention of the bell at Monaco Bay, that both dolphins and humans promised to answer if the bell was rung, and the various things explored by the dolphins - "the seas and the deep abysses and the Great Currents, the Two Subsidences, Greater and Smaller, and the Four Upwellings." Which is good - dolphins would relate to things by ocean currents and other sea markers.

The Tillek tells the calves not to use the derogatory "long-foot" or "finless" when referring to humans, and informs the dolphins that the humans suffer from Thread, rather than being able to consume it the way dolphins do. Which is a thing the dolphins have to accept as a truth, even though it's not their lived experiences. There's the story of the sleds and flamethrowers, and the great migration north, and then the Sickness and how it affected the bell ringing at Fort. But even with calves that want to break with the humans because they don't follow traditions, Kibbe is very much TRADITION with the calves.

With no answer to the bell, Kibbe gives up and heads back to report to the Tillek that nobody answered, and so nobody gets dolphin knowledge. 

That's it for the prologue, and likely the least time we'll see anything from their perspective. Which is a shame, because I like the dolphins a whole lot better than I like the humans.

Chapter One starts with Alemi, now a Masterfisher, and the young Readis. It's a little bit of a cute exchange of the child eager to go fishing with his uncle being given a reminder of the need for safety equipment, like vests, by virtue of the uncle pointing out that he wears them, too, even though he's an adult and a good swimmer.

The fishing is for a gather at Swacky's, and there's a quick sketch of a summary of Renegades, but since Readis is our viewpoint character for this chapter, he doesn't really understand much about what happened. He just enjoys both Alemi (the one who tends to gesture rather than talk) and Swacky (who tends to talk at length, and whose gather is to celebrate turning seventy-five) equally well in his life. The narrative tells us that Alemi has three daughters and a fourth child on the way, hopefully a son that can be taught all of these things, but until then, Alemi practices it all with Readis. Which makes it sound a lot less like a happy uncle-nephew relationship and more like Alemi wanting Readis to be his own child. Even if Alemi has to admit that Readis had never "fed the fishes", even in difficult waters.

There are fishing "rods of the finest bambu, with reels of the stout tight-stranded line, and hooks hand-fashioned by the Hold's Smithjourneyman," which makes me wonder what the biomes are like on Pern that they have both bamboo reeds and hardwood forests. And also, I think that's the first time I've seen the compound word construction for a rank under Mastercrafter. And also, this construction would work so much better for differentiation between **a** Craftmaster (one who has obtained the rank) and **the** Mastercrafter (the single elected had of the Craft). Continuity!

Anyway, yes, there is fishing, and Readis hauls one in before Alemi tries to do the same, but the fish is pulling the boat, not the other way around. They get it hauled in before the Great Current, but then comes a squall and the fight is on to keep the ship afloat and upright. That doesn't happen, but the two are rescued by a pod of dolphins and kept safe by them through the storm.

Afterward, the dolphins express what looks like happiness, and there are several pages of dolphins talking to Readis and Alemi and asking about whether Landing is occupied again. Readis, being tiny, takes it all in stride. Alemi, not so much.

The text, probably trying to convey the linguistic shift that AIVAS apparently automatically compensated for, has doll-fins speaking in a pseudophonetic, grammar-chopped way. "Long tayme no talk," "Men back Landing?" "Wielcame. Uur duty," and so forth. Admittedly, Alemi is dazed at this point from the storm and not really paying attention, but the effect at this point is to give the dolphins an accent and a grammar that is often replicated to indicate an ESL (English as a Second Language) speaker that is particularly hard to understand, because they have very little experience with English and can't string together words into normal-sounding sentences. The problem with that is that the dolphins have been talking human languages since before Landing. And have been teaching it well enough through the generations that they are intelligible to people many generations after humans forgot that dolphins were intelligent companions. This is implausible to me. Dolphins should be suffering the same penalty AIVAS was narratively allowed to sidestep regarding linguistic drift. _[The comments suggest that the dolphins, being exposed to enough of humans over time, have been able to adjust their language to stay somewhere near to what the Pernese are staying, so that way the authors can handwave how the humans and dolphins can understand each other.]_

But also, the heavy accent and chopped grammar make the dolphins appear stupid, when it's pretty clear they are anything but. I worry we are going headlong into the problem of Animals in the hands of an author that wants them to be intelligent, but to still need humans to rule over them. The dolphins should not be Silly Animals. But this kind of quote, in the context of the pod relating they had made contact with humans and spoken to them, and been spoken to politely in return —

_[Also, guess what's been used as a storytelling shortcut for just about every Black, Indigenous, and/or Person of Color to make them appear less intelligent or more comedic than the White person they're being put in contrast to? Broken and/or heavily accented English, as a clear second language learned after their first one.]_

> Afo, Kib, Mel, Temp, and Mul swam fast and proud, with great leaps. And Mel wondered if mans would still know how to get rid of bloodfish, for he had one sucking him that he could not seem to scrape off, no matter how he tried.

— is not encouraging at all. 

That's chapter one, giving us a full account of what we covered in the last books from the perspective of those that experienced it, and a little bit at the end from the dolphins. Chapter two is very short, and essentially covers Jaxom's visit and Aramina's very fierce resistance to having Readis strike up friendship with the dolphins, with a paragraph at the end about how the dolphins were disappointed that the humans didn't come to pick off bloodfish, even though the dolphins did the thing they were supposed to and returned the pieces of the ship, calling it to the humans who came for it. It seems that we might get our dolphin perspective, but only after the humans get their near-complete allotment of pages.

I'd like to be wrong about that, if that's possible.


	2. Ring The Doom Bell

Last time, after a promising prologue, we retread the situation where Alemi and Readis were knocked overboard fishing and rescued by talking dolphins.

**The Dolphins of Pern: Chapter III: Content Notes: Possible flashbacks, Silly Animals**

Aramina has voiced strong objection to Readis continuing to seek friendship on the sea, because he's supposed to be learning how to be a Lord Holder on land, not chasing things on water. She continues this objection in Chapter III, being grateful to Alemi for teaching Readis much of the Fishercraft, but not wanting him to tell more of the plentiful tales of dolphins that his crews have relayed to him.

> "Do me a favor, Alemi?" Aramina asked, her expression severe.  
>  "What?"  
>  "Don't tell Readis any of those tales."  
>  "Ara..." Jayge began in protest.  
>  She wheeled on him. "I know all too well, Jayge Lilcamp, what can happen to a child who gets its head full of **notions**!"  
>  Jayge pulled back and and gave her a sheepish expression. "All right, Ara, I take the point. Alemi?"  
>  "Oh, aye, I'll keep my mouth shut."  
>  There was an awkward pause and then Aramina relented. "If he asks, tell him the truth. I won't have him lied to or put off."  
>  "You want it both ways?" Jayge asked.  
>  She gave him a scowl, then relaxed a bit with a rueful smile on her face. "I guess I do. But he's only seven and the least said the best as far as I can see."

(Do they even have the conception of a favor on Pern, much less this idiomatic construction? I've got no reason to believe they do, but at this point, I think I just have to roll with the idea that Terran customs and such survived wholesale to this far flung future society.)

Aramina's objections make more sense, finally, instead of being classified as "Aramina insists the social structure be perpetuated to the next generation unthinkingly," which is what they were definitely coming across as. A post-traumatic stress reaction to having been disbelieved, then kidnapped and held hostage, and then hunted by that kidnapper until a relatively recent fight actually killed her? That would mess anyone up about anything, and that it was about a special talent of communication that she had makes Aramina extra sensitive to someone else discovering a similar "hey, we can talk to things we thought we couldn't" sort of situation, at an age earlier than Aramina's first narratively-recorded encounter. Because even if Thella is gone, Aramina is probably going to be having nightmares about that for the rest of her life.

The narrative stays with Alemi, whose wife (Kitrin) doesn't really want him to go to Landing while she's pregnant. Alemi is extremely excited about being to go, but trying to hide it. Because, well, he gets to tell the AI about the dolphins (and that the dolphins are distinguishable by features, colors, scars, and such) and to ride a dragon. There's a detour into how Alemi came south (Menolly convinced him to do it) and an interesting bit of worldbuilding - any Mastercrafter can call for a dragon to convey them where they want to go. Alemi doesn't use the privilege much, but that seems like a new invention that doesn't truck much with earlier books and Sean Connell's insistence that dragons aren't supposed to be used as cargo (or people) transporters.

In any case, after a little awkward about how new the bronze rider sent to get him is, Alemi arrives at the AIVAS building at Landing.

> Alemi knew the story of its discovery--it had been a harper's tale at many a gather. It had been one of the last of the Ancients' buildings to be excavated, a task undertaken by Mastersmith Jancis, Journeyman Harper Piemur, and Lord Jaxom--on a whim, it was said. And Ruth had helped.

That's...accurate. I'm surprised it hasn't mushroomed into some giant propaganda story and been embellished into something that's more useful for the Harpers.

In any case, a short conversation with Robinton reveals the AI is quite happy to hear of the rediscovery of the dolphins and even more pleased that they retained the ability to speak in human-intelligible speech. Considering that Alemi goes in and sees AIVAS right afterward, there doesn't seem to be a need for Robinton to do anything at all, except show Alemi to the correct room. 

AIVAS was hoping for Readis to be there, but Alemi explains Aramina's reluctance (for the second time in as many pages) and AIVAS continues on to the substance of the matter, asking Alemi to fill in information about the dolphins as it plays archive footage of them. Alemi does, which allows AIVAS to explain that dolphins are, in fact, mammals, and then produce a video of a live video of dolphin birth. Along with more information about them, and Alemi recognizing that all the footage is from a planet other than Pern, we get this gem of an unintentional argument about why Impression is not the best thing in the world.

> "Doll-fin ears?" Alemi exclaimed, slapping his knee with one hand as he saw men and women working with the dolphins, both undersea and being propelled across the surface of the water alongside their unlikely mounts. "Like dragons and their riders?"  
>  "Not as close a bond as I am told that is. There is no ceremony similar to Impression as dragons and riders undergo. The association between humans and dolphins was of mutual convenience and consent, not lifelong, though congenial and effective."

Although Impression is always played up as the best thing and a permanent happiness boost forever, by having a friend that knows you equally as well as you know yourself, we've never actually seen whether or not that lasts forever, and whether any rider actually hopes for or asks for some alone time away from their dragon. (Or has a spot in their mind that's just their space, no dragons or fire lizards allowed.) It would be so much nicer, easier, and cleaner for dragons and riders for their linkages to be voluntary and possibly time-limited.

Alemi totally wants to get to the dolphin communication.

> "How do you get them to talk to you, Aivas?"  
>  "It is frequently a matter of record, mentioned by numerous dolphineers, that getting the mammals to stop talking was considered more of a problem."  
>  "Really?" Alemi was delighted.  
>  "Dolphins apparently have an unusual ability to delay 'work' in favor of 'games'."

Which segues into a discussion of the recovered Monaco Bay bell, and AIVAS printing instructions for Alemi on how to reestablish contact with the dolphins. Then some flying around and looking for the recovered bell to see it for himself. Even in its barnacle-encrusted state, lacking a clapper, the first thing Alemi decides to do with it is ring it with his finger. Which surprises him that a bell can still ring, so he takes a rock from T'lion, his assigned dragonrider, and then rings the bell much more vibrantly. And continues to do so with rocks until, as he should have been told, the entire bay is full of dolphins. Perhaps even if he had read what the AI had printed for him, he would know that this would have happened.

Alemi expresses concern that the dolphins are going to beach themselves in their exuberance, but wading out to turn them back instead has him be tossed around by the dolphins, much to T'lion's horror and attempts to rescue him. Eventually Alemi gets everyone calm with a mighty shout and sorts out who is in charge. And then had to understand that ringing the bell actually means something, since he didn't get it the first few times, presumably.

> "We titch. You lis-ten," Flo said, turning one eye on him so he could see the happy curve of its mouth. "Bellill ring? Trub-bul? Do bluefiss?"  
>  "No, no trub-bul," Alemi said with a laugh. "I didn't mean to ring the bell to **call** you," he added. And then shrugged because he didn't understand their last question.  
>  "Good call. Long lis-ten. No call. We...[a word Alemi didn't catch]...bell. Pul-lease?" She cocked her head--Alemi didn't know why, all at once, he decided she was a female, but something about her seemed to give that clue to her gender. He was also peripherally aware of how much he had actually absorbed from the pictures that Aivas had shown and the explanations of these...mammals. That was going to shock the conservative fishmen. His father especially. "Fish" had no right to be intelligent, much less answer humans.

And if we have been reading along since the beginning, we remember that Alemi is Menolly's brother, and therefore the father mentioned is Yanus, who happily let his daughter be maimed to prevent her from practicing arts be believed were forbidden to her gender by TRADITION. (tradition!) And since there's no way of replacing a bad Lord short of murder, one can only guess how miserable the population of Half-Circle is with this technological, tradition-defying change going on around them.

Alemi promises to build a proper bell for the dolphins at Paradise River, and inadvertently agrees to the part where people are going to scrape off the bloodfish, although he doesn't know it yet, and then sets down to read the paper AIVAS printed...after rescuing it from his wet jacket. But thankfully, nothing appears to have degraded.

The dolphin part of the chapter is all glee about how the dolphins of Moncobay heard a bell and came, and how the dolphins are extremely excited that the mans have finally remembered things and it's time for the great partnership to resume between the two species.

I still can't get over the decision to make the dolphins into crude speakers, though. The dolphin segments are supposed to be showing us that they are still intelligent and can communicate just fine, but the artificial intelligence got to run a subroutine and correct for several thousand years of drift so that it could sound important and erudite. The dolphins, presumably, have had the same opportunities to overhear human speech for the same amount of time. If the dolphins are teaching their calves human from generation to generation, barring sounds that the dolphins can't actually vocalize, there should be no reason for them not to be understandable, and without the need for this phonetic speech pattern. (And if a lot of human sounds are unpronounceble by dolphin, then the Ancients would have presumably figured out some other way of communication that worked for both species.) Dolphins still should not sound like children. Unless you're the author, that is, who is basically making them children and then trying to have the narrative tell us that pairing with them children is the best thing for both the dolphins and the children (perhaps because they're about the same mentality, in the author's eyes?)

_[Yet again, another stereotype used to justify BIPOC being enslaved, turned comedic, or otherwise saying that it's "necessary" to subjugate them, was claiming their intelligence was childlike and they needed to have the more intelligent White people shepherd them into "civilization." There's almost no way that the authors were intending for this comparison because it's too on the nose to have been the product of conscious and intentional thought, but all the same, dolphins seem to be running the checklist of colonialist depictions of the indigenous people of the places the colonists went.]_

Maybe, hopefully, after communication is more firmly established, the dolphins will lose their childlike patterns. Because it's getting painful to have to read this.


	3. Pursuing the Not-Quite-Forbidden

Last chapter, Alemi got told not to involve Readis in dolphin tales, then went to AIVAS to get instructions on how to talk to the dolphins. Rather than read them, Alemi scouts, and then rings, the bell that summons the dolphins, establishing more contact and firmly cementing them as intelligent mammals instead of non-intelligent fish.

**The Dolphins of Pern: Chapter IV: Content Notes: References to abusive family**

Chapter IV opens with Alemi returning to a Paradise Hold and talking about what he did to Jayge.

> "That's all very well and good, Alemi, I suppose"--Jayge hesitated--"it's good. We've got fire-lizards and dragons, why not intelligent life in the seas? The Ancients **apparently** knew what to combine to make a perfect world, so those doll-fins had their role to play..." He hesitated again.  
>  "But you're worried about Readis?"  
>  Jayge let out an explosive sigh. "Yes, I am. He's still talking about his mam'l..."  
>  "They are," Alemi said, regaining his perspective on the matter, "mammals."  
>  [...Jayge is confused that AIVAS has data on dolphin births and such...]  
>  "Look, I'll keep my findings to myself, then. You didn't mention my interview with Aivas to Readis, did you? No. All right. I certainly won't, but I'd like your permission, as my Holder, to discreetly pursue a closer relationship with these creatures.[...]"  
>  [...Jayge asks what Idarolan thinks of it, and then assents...]  
>  Alemi nodded, perversely pleased that he could try to establish himself with the dolphins without having to share the experience.

And also, doesn't actually mention that he's planning on building a bell (and a float for it) so that he can summon and talk to the dolphins. How is anyone going to keep a curious Readis from hearing the bell, or from piecing together that the bell summons the dolphins when you ring it? Especially when the narrative tells us that Alemi plans on building a bell bigger than the one that's currently on his ship to use. It's going to carry.

We also get more about the strained relationship between Alemi and Yanus, who remains unnamed.

> Alemi was extra mindful of some of the precautions Aivas had mentioned--precautions Fishmen always observed but without knowing why: taking care of the size of the nets, as well as the old warnings of the "sin" of netting a shipfish. Even his father, who hadn't the imagination to be superstitious, followed those precepts. Now Alemi knew the reason behind those practices, but he doubted his father would ever admit to it--much less admit that dolphins could actually talk and were intelligent. One of the many gulfs between them.

No, wait, hang on. The idea of "sin" and "hadn't the imagination to be superstitious" do not belong in the same description. Yanus does these things in a near-fanatical devotion to TRADITIONS (traditions!), which suggests there's something driving that belief. "Society collapses if we deviate from the perfect ways of our ancestors" is a perfectly good superstition.

That said, "sin" is a distinctly religious concept, and until AIVAS specifically made reference to it, Pern very specifically never had any sort of religious work. (Unless you count Harper ballads about the Cult of the Dragonriders. Which we probably should.) There's no Being Represented By The Tetragrammaton, but also no Wiccan Rede, Wheel of Karma, or any other concept that would facilitate the idea of virtue and sin. Netting a shipfish might be a sign of ill fortune, but unless a theology developed somewhere while we weren't looking, it wouldn't be a "sin". (This is where you need a continuity editor, no really.)

_[The farther we get into this series, and especially when we make the jump to the new author, the more it becomes clear that the authorial fiat that there's no religion on Pern, there's no superstition on Pern, and everything that might be a superstition turns out to have a solid and logical foundation behind it, making it true and accurate and more scientific than a superstition, is just that, a fiat, and that it has a far narrower scope than they believe it does. This rule appears only to be that one does not refer to any of the known religions, concepts, and practices of 20th c. Terra by their formal names. Except when they do, like with "sin" above, but there have been at least a couple comments here and there saying that plenty of words still survive into 21st c. Terra completely devoid of their original contexts._

_The fiat saying there is no religion on Pern makes AIVAS's quotation of Tanakh interesting, especially because AIVAS ascribes the quotation to the finest book ever written, so the AI clearly has an opinion about what religion is the best religion (although I suspect that it's supposed to be a declaration of Christian supremacy, not Jewish). And some amount of research into folklore studies, religious studies, anthropology, or any other discipline that talks about the things that people believe would make it clear that you can't just say "no named religious practices are allowed" and believe that you've gotten religion completely out of the planet. Humans don't work that way, and it becomes something that I could call hypocrisy if I had even an inkling that it was deliberate to have all of this very clear (at least to me) religious and superstitious practice and language present in the areligious, atheist Pern.]_

Anyway, Yanus's stubbornness at being proven wrong would have an easier time being accepted if Alemi casually dropped something here about how long and how far Menolly has risen as a Harper, and yet, if you asked Yanus about her, he would say his daughter had ran away to become Holdless [x] years ago and he's never seen her since. _[Wait for it…]_ It's probably bad enough that Alemi is a Masterfisher and went away from the Hold to go South.

There's also a lot about more settlers coming south to get their own hunk of land to do work with. Which, essentially, temporarily relieves the pressure problem that's been plaguing the North. Once there's no more land to grab, though, the problems will start all over again unless the Lords decide there's some way they can parcel out their land in smaller ways.

Or the end of the threat of Thread is the harbinger of the complete takeover by the Crafts and conversion of the feudal society into a capitalist one, now that there's no overarching threat to hold the society together. (Assuming the dragonriders don't get involved, anyway.)

Alemi does inform Idarolan of his plans, framing it as good research toward the end of making sailing and fishing safer - if all ships can summon additional help in bad situations, that's a benefit to the Fishercraft. There's a little praise of Menolly, as it's her methods for fire-lizard training that Alemi used to get his well-behaved Tork.

After discarding the idea of using Jayge's alarm triangle as a dolphin bell (has the triangle been here for longer than this book and the last one? Or is it an instrument that's definitely came with the AI? It's talked about as a "post-Thella" thing, but does that make it post-AIVAS?), Alemi asks Fandarel if he'll cast him a nice bell. Fandarel says yes, but it will have to wait until all the other commissions are done. Robinton sends a handbell and the possibility that a bigger bell might exist somewhere else.

For the moment, Alemi concerns himself with learning the hand signals and commands for dolphins on the printout that AIVAS provided and shaking his head at the fact that the Pernese have had intelligent species there the whole time and have not put the pieces together. And then offers a useful explanation of the why, although it's couched in yet another commentary on Yanus, who is finally mentioned by name.

> "Yes, indeed, I can just picture my good father, Yanus, listening to a shipfish!" He snorted.  
>  "Exactly," Kitrin said with some heat, for a moment abandoning the little wrapper she was hemming for their expected child. "I mean no disrespect--well, maybe I do," she added with a rueful expression, "but he is sometimes..."  
>  " **Always** ," Alemi amended firmly with a smile.  
>  "So set in his ways. You know, neither he nor your mother have **ever** mentioned Menolly. Though your mother often remarks on ingratitude in my presence." She sighed. "It's as if Menolly never existed."  
>  "I think she prefers it that way," Alemi said with a wry and slightly bitter grin, knowing all too well the treatment given his talented sister during her adolescence at Half Circle Sea Hold. "Both of them--mother and daughter."  
>  "Menolly's never been back? Ever?"  
>  "Not to the Sea Hold. Why should she?"  
>  Kitrin shrugged. "It seems so...so awful...that they cannot accept her accomplishments." Then she added shyly, "Sebell always remembers to send us copies of her latest songs. Alemi, **when** are we going to have a harper?"  
>  He grinned, for he knew that had been the main reason for the trend of their conversation.  
>  "Hmmm. I've asked Jayge and Aramina. Readis is growing old enough to learn his ballads and so are enough youngsters, including our own, for the hold to have its own harper. Enough for a journeyman surely, and we can offer many benefits here: decent weather and property to develop."  
>  "Ask if **they've** asked," Kitrin said with unusual force. "I'm not going to see the girls, or our **son** "--and she said this defensively, one hand on her gravid belly--"grow up ignorant of what they owe Hold, Hall, and Weyr."

And there's the thing that should have come first - the easiest way of establishing that Yanus is stubborn to the point of disowning and insisting his daughter doesn't exist because she bucked his traditional worldview.

Given how abusive Yanus is, I can't make a judgment on whether Mavi is going along with this because she believes the same thing or because she's too afraid of him. The questions about ingratitude might be solidarity or attempting to get information about Menolly without appearing sympathetic to her. I realize that Mavi allowed Menolly's hand to heal improperly, but everything she's done that's hurt Menolly has been passive instead of active - she allows Menolly to come to harm instead of actively harming her.

_[A commentator on the original said that Mavi tried to heal Menolly's hand as best she could, and that it was only later that Menolly came to the conclusion that Mavi had let her hand heal poorly. I think the question of how deliberate it was hinges on Manora's surprise that someone with Mavi's skill at healing would let a wound like Menolly's heal that poorly. It's also hard to tell how much of what Mavi was thinking and doing was in relation to Yanus and how much of that would have been a conscious decision on her part. I still maintain that Mavi didn't heal Menolly as much as she could have has this accident happened in an environment where there wasn't an abusive asshole who was going to continue to get angry and violent with his daughter based on her ability to make music. One of the other commentators on the original suggested that it makes much more sense if Yanus is trying to prevent his daughter from joining the all-male priesthood of the Harpers rather than trying to stop her from making music on her own. If you're on board with the idea of the cult of the dragonriders and the Harpers as their priests, that does make a lot of things make more sense.]_

Alemi does inquire of Jayge about getting a Harper, who says that all the Harpers are essentially booked to transcribe AIVAS's data banks. Alemi offers to lean on Menolly to get a Harper freed up to be sent to Paradise River. And gets Menolly herself, who needed to go somewhere warm to compose. And also to give birth to what will be her second child. She came with Camo, who is apparently not just great at taking care of fire lizards, but also children, by virtue, supposedly, of being "not much more than an overgrown baby himself." Menolly apparently brought mostly musical instruments, writing instruments, and only a couple changes of clothes for herself.

Menolly's arrival in person causes a scramble, as they erected quarters only for a journeyman and Menolly is far too important for that kind of structure, but Menolly refuses fancier accommodations. In response, Kitrin organizes a baking and cooking storm to make sure there's enough food of fancy enough making to be appropriate for her rank for the impromptu Gather put on in her honor. 

Menolly's singing brings memories of childhood and adolescence for Alemi (which I am beginning to suspect is a reasonably well-crafted way of bringing new readers up to speed that haven't read the Harper Hall trilogy, or have forgotten enough of it to need the refresher - it's been nearly a decade or more since those books came out) as well as what is the narrative's answer to my speculation before about Mavi's malevolence.

> He had been furious with his parents' vindictive attitude when she'd cut her hand on a venomous packtail fish and it looked as if the injury might prevent her from playing again. They looked so **pleased**!

What would have been more useful is if Alemi ever got to see or hear Mavi talk about it in a situation where she could be reassured that her talk wouldn't get back to Yanus. Because everything that's presented as evidence is always them together, and really, if you're in a situation with an abuser and there doesn't seem to be a way of getting out and living a life in your own (because fucking patriarchy _and_ flesh-eating rain), then you order your life and your thoughts around making sure that abuser doesn't hurt _you_ , by whatever formula your brain comes up with that it believes will work. Mavi might have been pleased in the sense of "Oh, if that scars badly, then Yanus will stop abusing all of us" _[which she might then feel intensely guilty about, because good people generally don't take pleasure in serious injury to others]_ and not "what a blessing from God that will stop my wayward daughter from straying from His commands." The difference is crucial, and the narrative is trying to elide it in insisting Mavi was enthusiastic about the abuse.

After a spell of singing, Alemi thinks to himself that Menolly's songs continue to do their jobs as effective tools.

> Still, that's what harpering was about, wasn't it? Getting people to think and feel and, most of all, learn. The Fishercraft fed bodies, but the Harpercraft fed souls.

Setting aside for a second the continuing problems of religious concepts invading the nominally atheist Pern, this line could be read in both a way that's virtuous, if you believe the Harpers are educators and entertainers, or sinister, if you blame them as propagandists who have been trying to keep a world stagnant from progress for the last two and a half millennia. Think, feel, and learn (what we want you to) sounds very much like the Harpers, and it's a little chilling in light of what Kitrin said earlier about making sure the children learned their obligations.

Which, actually, I should point out is an insistence that children learn a way of life that has as a keystone a situation (Thread) that could presumably be permanently removed in their lifetime. Because when the threat of being sent out in the deadly rain evaporates, what reason is anyone not currently being benefited by the social structure going to have to continue it? Especially if the dragonriders decide to take retirement and essentially remove themselves from Pern. Someone should be laying the groundwork for post-Thread civilization social contract. The Harpers have the responsibility for it, but they've all got their heads in the sand, it seems.

As things are, Alemi sneaks off one night and rings his ship bell occasionally, but only when he hits the Report sequence do the dolphins come, squealing "Bellill!", because dolphins can't possibly be expected to get a two-syllable word correct.

There are two good things that comes out of this - dolphins get fish, and finally, Alemi asks what "blufiss" are _and gets shown_ so he figures out that they're bloodfish and is then able to remove them with his knife. Getting close enough to the dolphins allows Alemi to see their distinguishing features and associate them with their names. After cleaning, everyone goes to sleep and there's a short dolphin interstitial about how they are pleased mans are remembering more of their duties, but mans still haven't figured out the dolphins know where the best fishing spots are, and there's no bell for the dolphins to ring yet.

The next morning is frank talk between Idarolan and Alemi, with Idarolan promising not to mention dolphins to Yanus, because they both know that Yanus wouldn't believe it anyway, much like how he doesn't believe AIVAS exists. And Idarolan relays a very touching confession from Menolly about why she came.

> "You're why she came, you know. Told me one night she'd never had a chance to get to know you but you were the best of the lot."  
>  Alemi stared back at his Master. "She said that? About me?" He felt his throat get tight with pride and love of her.

Not that it was a particularity high bar to get over, but yes, Alemi, you were not awful to Menolly.

After that, Alemi rings a report bell and Idarolan gets his first up close with the dolphins...and is mostly bowled over by the legends being true, but also there's some going over of the contractual bits between dolphins and humans. The mention of Tillek sends the dolphins into a frenzy, asking if there's a Tillek present. The humans don't get it, but it's still essentially a good first contact, and Idarolan leaves with the idea of enlisting those Fishers he believes would be open to the idea of working with dolphins. And that's the end of the chapter.

Have to say that the Fishercraft are definitely the best so far as a whole at adapting to their new realities. _[Save maybe the Smiths.]_


	4. A Not-Very-Well-Kept Secret

Last time, Alemi figured out that [RTFM](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ReadTheFreakingManual) works for dolphins as well as computers, Idarolan got to see and communicate with them up close and personal, Menolly came to be the Harper-in-residence, and everyone talked about what kind of a stubborn asshole Yanus is. _[But, of course, just because someone's an asshole doesn't mean you can get rid of them with someone better. Long live Pern.]_ I hope that's not foreshadowing.

**The Dolphins of Pern: Chapter V: Content Notes: Implied Neglect, Drudgeism**

Chapter V starts with Alemi's shuttle-dragonrider, T'lion, getting curious about the dolphins, too, although they're very clearly not as good as dragons. We also find out that T'lion came to his bronze in the same way that Mirrim came to her green, which suggests these things happen more frequently than anyone wants to let on.

> His brother, Kanadin, had been the official Candidate and, even though he had Impressed a brown, Kanadin had never quite forgiven his younger brother for making such a show of himself and Impressing when he hadn't even been **presented** as a possible rider. Impressing a bronze was an even more unforgivable injury.  
>  [...as one might expect, K'din didn't believe his brother that it was an accident, and T'lion tried to brush it off as a consequence of the grounds, which didn't have the high tiers of seating...]  
>  It wasn't as if T'lion had **tried** , in any way, to attract the hatchling's attention. He hadn't so much as moved a muscle. Of course, he had been so flabbergasted to find a little dragon butting him that he had to be urged by T'gellan--the Weyrleader--and the Weyrlingmaster to accept the Impression.  
>  [...Even three years later, the rift is still present between the brothers...]  
>  T'lion was very grateful to T'gellan, the Weyrleader, and his weyrmate, Mirrim, green Path's rider, because they never once made the youngster feel uncomfortable.  
>  "The dragon chooses," T'gellan had said at the time, and often at other Impressions, shaking his head ruefully at dragon choice. Then he'd congratulated the stunned family on having **two** such worthy sons.

(My copy misspells Mirrim as Minim in that quote, but that's pretty clearly a typo.)

_[People getting dragons who aren't traditionally candidates is a recurring motif in the Todd books. The narrative in those books would like you to believe that it's completely the fault of Fiona, a heterodox Weyrwoman, for putting up those candidates in the first place, but what it ends up doing is pointing out to the entire audience that who gets a dragon is very clearly more a matter of who gets put in front of them rather than anything having to do with whether or not the candidate is somehow better suited to dragons or not. The Search that supposedly finds the best candidates doesn't really do so, given everything that we've seen about people refusing to have their children taken on Search and also these situations where people who are supposedly in the audience end up Impressing dragons._

_Also, normally this would be a petty grudge being held for far too long between T'lion and K'din, except for the part where dragon color indicates rank and likelihood of being put into a leadership position. T'lion, the unsearched one, has been chosen as more worthy and powerful than K'din, the one who was searched and brought before the dragons. K'din's anger is misplaced, of course, at T'lion rather than at the system that produces this stratification, but given how many examples of systemic injustice go unfixed in 21st c. Terra, and how much investment there is in misleading people to be upset at other individuals they should be in solidarity with, I understand how difficult it is to keep the anger on the right target.]_

I should certainly hope whatever Weyr Path and Mirrim are in is accepting of someone who becomes a dragonrider without being presented as a candidate. Although it would have been nice to see what the conversation was like between the two of them, because it would have said a lot about T'gellan as to how enthusiastically okay he was with T'lion's situation. From the sounds of things, T'gellan is already laid back enough about dragon choice that this wouldn't bother him much, but I can see Mirrim ready to give him both barrels about acceptance, only to be derailed when T'gellan says "Yeah, I'm okay with this." It would be a nice touch of progressivism in the otherwise feudal-Randian Pern.

Also, Eastern appears to be the only Weyr we know of where the seniormost Weyrwoman is not the weyrmate of the Weyrleader. I wanna see Eastern operate now, so I can see what a functional Weyr with that situation looks like.

As T'lion reminisces, however, we get a wet fish slap of how -ist Pern still is, in the context of how T'lion prides himself on being a discreet and courteous chauffeur.

> Or those who tried to order him about as if he were a drudge. No dragon **ever** chose a drudge personality! Of course, his being so young made some adults feel as if they had to patronize him... **him**! A dragonrider!

No dragon, perhaps, but at least one very famous dragonrider. Although they would argue that was before she became a dragonrider. And perhaps that Mirrim was a headwoman / dragonrider's secretary / personal assistant. Still, the idea of the "drudge" as the untouchable caste and the repository of every societal vice is not cool. Maybe when Thread is gone, we'll witness a drudge revolt, now that the threat that keeps them inside is gone forever.

As for the patronizing, T'lion should talk to K'van about his experiences. I'll bet they have stories to share.

Ah, yes, the plot. Essentially it's "dragon flies low, is startled by the dolphin speech", and then a dolphin interlude that dragons still like them, and then more of T'lion enjoying having private space and liking the kitchen work, instead of seeing it as "drudge chores" like his brother does. (Woe to all you fools who never learned to do chores on your own. When the drudges revolt, you'll be sorry!) And conveying Menolly a lot, since she's too pregnant for hyperspace. Which gives him a lot of time to play with the dolphins and note that their pronunciation is shifting toward what is correct for this time.

Oh, _finally_.

When T'lion sees Alemi again, Alemi deduces that T'lion's been talking with the dolphins, and the two compare notes about whether or not dolphins can hear dragon telepathy and the linguistic shift the dolphins have to undertake.

> "How come they got so...twisted?"  
>  "Ah..." Alemi held up one hand. "We don't speak the way our ancestors did."  
>  "We don't?" T'lion exclaimed, his eyes widening. "But the harpers are forever saying that they've helped keep the language pure, just as it's always been spoken."  
>  Alemi laughed. "Not according to Aivas. He had to make adjustments to allow for"-- Alemi hesitated briefly, trying to get the next words right--"lingual shifts. But let's not rub harper noses in the fact. I certainly want to keep on the good side of my sister the Masterharper. I've only to mention her name and here she is! Good day to you, Master Menolly."

Does nobody see the implications of the Harpers essentially boasting that they've been able to prevent new words from coming into the language for so long? And that they've supposedly stopped people from even changing the pronunciation of the words? Essentially claiming they have stopped new ideas from getting in? And nobody calls them out on blatant hypocrisy when they throw Norist under the bus for essentially trying to do what they've been doing all along? And also, it appears that the information about linguistic shift had not been disseminated widely, possibly because it might break the monopoly of language and infallibility the Harpers currently hold. Somehow, I don't think the Harpers are going to be spared when the revolution arrives.

Anyway, there's flying Menolly around (and mention of archivists at Landing, so maybe someone learned proper Archives and Records Management from the AI before it turned itself off?), a worry that Menolly might go into labor and T'lion would be useless (for which he files away a note to ask Mirrim about it, good lad), getting kitchen-drafted, and then T'lion accidentally puts himself into the AIVAS room trying to grab a breather and a bite. Since he's a dragonrider, though, after the initial embarrassment, AIVAS will talk to him, and appreciates and encourages T'lion's continued interaction with the dolphins, dropping a nice tidbit that most of the dolphin names encountered so far seem to be derivatives, shortenings, or parts of the names of the original complement of dolphins that first arrived.

After T'lion reports, we switch to Idarolan, who has disseminated the reports he has on dolphin intelligence and tasks, consults the Records of the craft and makes correlations between various incidents and the presence of dolphins, and then gets his own printout and training sheet from AIVAS to spread among the Craft that is interested in more relationships with their dolphins. His efforts are rewarded personally by better fish hauls and avoiding unknown reefs by following the dolphins. It's nice filler.

Where the plot actually wants to go is with Menolly and Kitrin and the children. Menolly wants to have Alemi come swim with them, and Kitrin mentions he's off talking to the dolphins, but trying to do it in such a way that won't upset Aramina or encourage Readis. She can hear the bell call when the wind is right, but she's afraid Readis will get hurt because he would chase dolphins everywhere.

> "Well, I can help distract him from that," Menolly said. "At his age, they don't have a long concentration span." She gave a sigh. "You see to keep one step ahead of them, with something new to do, a game or a challenge. Your girls are a great help with him, by the way. Such biddable children."  
>  Kitrin sat a bit straighter, delighted at by praise of her Kitral, Nika, and Kami, and neatly diverted away from the previous topic.

_[And here's a Cocowhat. Been a while since one's shown up.]_

I don't think the idea of "biddable children" should be seen as a virtue, but then again, I'm also a 21st century person with a mentality that children are intelligent enough that they can be reasoned with and given some freedom. I also think that women should be destined for something other than motherhood and child-rearing, even from the early days. (I also realize that it's a societal thing that older children will be expected to help keep an eye on the younger ones.)

That's mostly griping about how Pern is such a horrible society, which has been going on for books now, though. The reason this is extra horrible, however, is that _Menolly should not be talking positively about "biddable children" at all_. She is, after all, the child disowned cause she wasn't biddable. The child maimed because she wasn't biddable. The child who spent quite some time in hell at the Harper Hall because everyone assumed she was biddable, and has since been flying two middle fingers to Pern's idea of what gender roles are. We haven't been able to see what Menolly's journey to Mastery was like, but it follows that it was probably a lot like her journeyman journey - full of assholes and dicks getting in her way because she's a woman.

Unless motherhood and being married to Sebell somehow caused a complete Stepford transformation, Menolly's past should make her someone that is utterly uninterested in traditional gender roles (or traditional anything) ever. 

Then again, marriage and babies made Lessa a lot less of the firebrand that she was in the original books. Maybe that is what the author believes is true about marriage and babies.

_[When the books shift authors, the focus on babies intensifies, to the point where there are several characters who are trying very hard to get pregnant and have kids and there's a lot of talk of raising children and so forth. There's still plenty of women doing things, but rarely do they do things that are outside the boundaries placed on them by the men in their lives. And also, there's a lot of cultural expectation that children are neither seen nor heard unless the adults need them to do something. So, despite the implication that there are all these kickass women on Pern doing kickass things, we almost never get to **see** them do those things._

_The narrative tendency to use the absolute wrong person to express an idea that should be expressed by someone else, where it would make sense to come from, continues on apace into the new books, too. The authors seem to go "this character is convenient, so I'll have them say stuff" without having a second thought about whether it would be in character for them to say it. It's aggravating, as you can guess.]_

Getting back to the plot, Menolly sneaks off to see Alemi. She hears the dolphins before she can see them, and then is introduced to them by Alemi. Who notice, of course, that she has a "babbee" inside. They talk about dolphin things, teaching words, and Menolly and Alemi sing a song for the dolphins, and then Menolly sings a Traditional ballad for all of them. The dolphins are attentive, and then go on from there.

Menolly and Alemi walk back and talk dolphins, fire lizards, and the brave new world their getting in to.

> "We have much to be thankful to the Ancients for," Alemi said in an expansive tone.  
>  "Though I wonder," Menolly replied thoughtfully, "if we will say the same in a few Turns' time when Aivas unleashes all the wonders stored up."  
>  "I thought the Harpers were applauding all the--what is it Aivas calls it--input?"  
>  "Knowledge is sometimes two-edged, Alemi. You learn about all the marvels that used to be and they set the standard for what can be, and maybe shouldn't be."  
>  [...Menolly shakes off the worries...]  
>  "Isn't it up to the Harper Hall and the Benden Weyrleaders to see that we learn only the best of what there is?" He was half-teasing, half-serious.  
>  "Indeed it is." She was very solemn. "A great responsibility, I assure you."

And there's confirmation that the information from the AI is being selectively fed into the population by the people who have yet to show they have enough ethics to make an attempt at getting it right. There's an argument to be made that dripping the information in is superior to opening the gates and seeing what all floods out, but nobody seems to be making that case, because nobody seems to be making the opposite case. Norist would have had a convincing case to the idea of giving everyone access to AIVAS instead of taking up the cause of Ned Ludd.

It also seems like Menolly is at least cognizant that the AIVAS trove could have unintended societal effects, but of course, she's not going to get to articulate those further, because that would introduce doubt about whether what Our Heroes are doing is right and proper. These are questions that should have been resolved before tapping in as much as they have to the AI.

The dolphin segment at the end of the chapter is about the songs sung by the humans, which comes with the knowledge that dolphins carry their history in songs that have been taught to them over the generations, in much the same way the Harpers do the same for the humans.

_[Much as I would like to have done more with the dolphin segments, what they're saying and doing is only in small chunks and it's not really a lot of what dolphin society is like, and what they're doing and have been doing in all of this time since the humans left and abandoned the dolphins. Like All The Weyrs, the title here is misleading.]_


	5. Strongly Out-of-Character

Last time, Idarolan, T'lion, and Menolly meet dolphins, as Alemi continues to work on getting to communicate and reestablish partnerships. Everyone is apparently too focused on the AI to consider that dolphins are useful to more than Fishers.

**The Dolphins of Pern: Chapter VI: Content Notes: Matchmaking, bullying attempts**

Chapter VI opens with Aramina's paranoia fading into the background in the light of Readis learning his ballads, another son joining Readis, and Alemi finally getting a son of his own. Aramina has plans for Readis to be Lord Holder of Paradise River, "though she secretly harbored the thought that he might be Searched for a dragonrider to the Eastern Weyr: He might be what she hadn't had the courage to pursue."

Sorry, that doesn't fly. Not when you spent a couple chapters earlier in in this book detailing to us why Aramina is paranoid about Readis getting involved with dolphins. It's not a lack of courage that Aramina suffers from, it's fucking _PTSD_! Aramina was subjected to torture and murder attempts because of her talent. And yes, Lessa offered to make her a queen rider candidate, but it was right after she was done going through all that trauma. And is there any sort of actual rule that says older women can't Impress, or is it just a societal thing that women over eighteen don't get the opportunity any more? Why can't Aramina try out for it anyway?

_[This concept gets even more worked on in a Todd book where a man well past the point where he would have aged out of being a dragonrider candidate gets a dragon, essentially because his Weyrwoman insists on making him stand at every possible Hatching possible. So if Aramina really wanted to, she could presumably stand just like everyone else. But that would, presumably, require Aramina to have worked through her traumas to stand, and yet again, we're aggravated at the lack of therapists on Pern.]_

Aramina wonders if Readis might follow in the dual-status role of Jaxom, a question complicated by whether or not the Weyrs will disband if they succeed at permanently killing off the threat of Thread. Aramina concludes its good for Readis to have a backup plan, and he'd be able to ride and hold together, since Jayge is likely to live quite a while past the end of Thread.

As things stand, Menolly's replacement Harper arrives, an Ista fisherhold child named Boskoney, but before he actually gets here, the narrative talks about his choosing, including a very vital bit of information about the Harper Hall:

> "They have to have someone as alert, eager, and," she added with a smile, "as adventurous an understanding of this environment as possible. We do have a lovely girl finishing her apprenticeship, if you wouldn't mind a woman harper..." Menolly cocked her head at her friends with a slot from and twinkle in her eye.  
>  "Of course we wouldn't mind," Jayge and Alemi said in unison, then smiled at each other.  
>  "As well, but Hally won't walk the tables for another nine or ten months and it's not good to start the teaching process and then interrupt it for such a long time. The children of this Hold are **eager** to learn, and I don't like to put them off."

_[Cocowhat! Now they're going to start raining down.]_

Good news: we've got it officially confirmed that there are other women Harpers following in Menolly's footsteps who aren't obvious Doylist inserts.

Bad news: Menolly is selling her as a Harper based on her good looks instead of her musical talent. 

Based on this and what happened last chapter, I would like the author to answer one question: _Who is this impostor, and what have you done with Menolly?_

First, Alemi and Jayge are both married with children. Which would be scandalous here on Terra, but it's pretty firmly established on Pern that the Lords Holder do not give a flying fuck about monogamy, only about succession rules, so I'm inclined to give it a pass based on the consistency of the worldbuilding.

Second, however, that's Menolly's brother and best friend she's essentially dangling a young beautiful woman in front of. I don't normally expect siblings, especially sisters, to be deliberately sending subordinates into the presence of guys likely to objectify her with a wink and a nod that it would be okay to do that.

Finally, and most importantly, that's _way out of character for Menolly_ , who was relentlessly bullied by the popular pretty girls (remember that Menolly was supposedly an ugly giant with no compulsions to modesty in Dunca's cottage) and then treated as a dumb girl by most, if not all of, the Masters when she finally got sorted out. The _last_ thing that Menolly is going to do is send a woman out for her journey based on whether or not she's going to look pretty while she's at it. _Especially_ if she wants someone eager and adventurous and willing to teach.

Either Menolly's been replaced, or there's some seriously powerful magic at work once you get married and have a child on Stepf--Pern, I mean. There's just. no. way.

And it gets worse. While Menolly is briefing Jayge and Aramina on the possible candidates:

> "Not at all," Jayge said. "We're quiet here and there are not that many children..."  
>  "Yet," Aramina added with a wink. When the excitement of that admission had abated, she asked if any of the men[, which Aramina and Jayge have sketches of, courtesy Perschar,] were married.  
>  "Not yet." Menolly grinned. "You've several lovely girls here among your holders. We have to give **them** some choice, too, and not limit it to smelly seamen." She grinned at her brother.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAZOMGWTFBBQ!

_[And a second Cocowhat.]_

_[And a third.]_

What is this bizarro-world where Menolly is knowingly trying to play matchmaker with the Harpers and commenting on the attractiveness of the young women here?

Unless.... Menolly is bi? It still doesn't explain why she's willing to throw a young Harper woman to these wolves, but it might help with why she's noticing and appreciating the young women here (and perhaps some help in explaining, past "grew up in a sea hold", why she was so comfortable being naked around the other girls at Dunca's). 

Otherwise, I've got nothing as to why the Menolly that's been reasonably consistent up until now is suddenly desirous of sending the pretty ones instead of the skilled ones.

_[The comments suggest that Menolly has absorbed the toxic masculinity of the Harper Hall as a survival technique and is now behaving just like the lads would, because she's had to be like them for so long to avoid the bullying and the othering. Which is a regrettably solid explanation. And also a significant amount of violence done to Menolly's character by making her be the person doing this, as opposed to some other character who could be used for the purpose.]_

In any case, Boskoney arrives, exit Menolly, but the plot is actually focusing on T'lion, who usually transports Boskoney to and from Landing. Until he gets called in to see T'gellan, and the presence of his brother and a loud comment from his own dragon lets him in on why they want to see him. 

> That gave T'lion the clue he needed: K'din had been spying on his evening sessions with the dolphins.  
>  "I believe you have some explaining to do, T'lion," T'gellan said sternly, cocking an eyebrow at his young rider. Mirrim also looked repressive.  
>  "About the dolphins?" T'lion hoped he sounded more relaxed than he actually was.  
>  "Dolphins?"  
>  "Yes, dolphins is what Aivas called them." He saw the Weyrleaders exchange glances as he casually dropped in that authority.

Well, there went the idea that Mirrim wasn't actually the Weyrwoman of Eastern Weyr, which is too bad.

However, what that did is essentially wreck the system that's been consistent in every other Pern book, because all the other Weyromen have always been gold queen riders and Path is definitely a green. Which makes me want to see how Eastern successfully functions all the more, because I doubt that a gold rider is going to meekly stand aside so that some green [bleep] can rule instead. And the gold queens are what Weyrs definitely need to produce the bronzes that are the backbones of Thread fights. So, really, what we need is a day or five inside Eastern, if we can get it. Too bad that won't happen.

_[Except that Mirrim isn't actually the Weyrwoman, Talia is, but details like that are the kinds of things that the authors increasingly and visibly stop caring about or override their editors and continuity checkers on. The way that this sequence is styled, and just about any appareances of T'gellan have Mirrim with him, which really suggests that Mirrim is at least a co-Weyrwoman or exercises some amount of power along with Talia. But we don't know this, because the author doesn't ever bother to explain it to us.]_

In any case, T'gellan and Mirrim question T'lion's involvement with the dolphins, T'lion gives his answers, and the two conclude that it would be a good idea to see the dolphins themselves. T'lion cheerfully invites K'din along, a move that both Weyrleaders agree to while giving K'din what amounts to the stink-eye. The meeting looks like it might go well, with T'lion pleased that the dolphins are saying "we" instead of "oo-ee," but one of them exuberantly soaks Mirrim and the other says that Mirrim's pregnant because she can see the baby.

There's also this bit, which may have been intended harmlessly, or even as a cheer for women, but instead hits a space that should be familiar to most women.

> "You woman, not oomans," Natua said.  
>  Mirrim made an O with her mouth, amazed that he recognized the difference. "Thank you, Natua! C'mon in, T'gellan, you're missing half the fun and the water's...warm!"

Yep, women aren't humans. They're clearly some other species or alien entity altogether. Men are the default, women are different. Nice going, humans.

In any case, Mirrim is shocked by the announcement of the pregnancy, and the dolphins claim their sonar makes it possible for them to know that the baby is there. Given that ultrasound works on the same principles...well, maybe? 

T'lion is mortified at this turn of events, and especially at such an exorbitant claim in front of K'din. T'gellan takes the sensible route and says they're all flying, without hyperspace, to AIVAS to see if the claims are valid. Which exposes how much research and reporting T'lion has been doing for AIVAS, since everyone, including the AI, knows him by name (and AIVAS says straight up that T'lion has been reporting to it on the matter.) That said, the AI says the dolphins are right and gives an explanation of what sonar is and how it was used by the Ancients to detect tumors and growths as well as pregnancies. T'gellan and Mirrim have a happy embrace, and then T'gellan wonders if this trick could be put to use, say, in spotting infections, since the Weyr Healer had severe problems trying to save a leg from "blood poisoning" that only manifested after the infection had advanced significantly. AIVAS says it's possible. Plans are made to send this information to the Healers, through D'ram.

There's also something that exposes something that I think would be an increased problem (or, perhaps, "problem", depending on the opinion of the rider involved) now that there's a queen fighting wing equipped with flamethrowers that sallies out on Threadfall.

> "That meeting with your dolphin friends took a most unexpected turn, lad. We thank you. [Mirrim]'s lost two babes because she didn't know she was pregnant. We don't want to lose another.  
>  [...the plans to inform the Healers start...]  
>  "It's always been a problem for Weyrwomen to know when they be conceived...and stay out of **between** in the first few months. You'll have women flocking to the shores to speak to dolphins."

Considering that dragons are essentially the fastest transport around, how do Weyrwomen actually stay out of hyperspace long enough to get visibly pregnant? Are they tied down enough at their own Weyr that they can't take a trip anywhere for months? If so, then how good are their headwomen? If not, what possibly keeps them out, since now they can fight on their own? Maybe if their dragon is visibly pregnant? That seems like it would ground a Weyrwoman for long enough that her own pregnancy might show. (Moreta, I think, complained about this very phenomenon, although she wasn't pregnant, just her dragon.) It would be an interesting study to see how many children are born to Weyrwomen within a particular window of a gold dragon hatching a clutch.

I also wonder what the experience of the lost child is, as a biological matter. I've only read things about how uteruses expel failed pregnancies, so the only thing I could do is guess as to how they know they've failed twice, when supposedly they were both before the point where the baby bump was visible. Maybe the presence of morning sickness or something else before an extra-heavy menstruation?

_[These questions and more will take up some significant portion of the Todd books, as woven into their string-and-duct-tape time travel plots are significant numbers of pregnancies, actions being taken to keep them viable, how long it takes in hyperspace to render one not-viable, and more. There's an obsession with pregnancy in the later books of a series that start first with a plague that devastates the humans and then a plague that devastates the dragons. All while most of the women involved in the attempts at pregnancy are teenagers or just beyond that.]_

And also, I think I take issue with the characterization that women will flock to the dolphins, because I think, even as far back as Dragonquest, there was an explicit mention of Hold women and others discreetly seeking the services of dragonriders to provide abortions-by-hyperspace. So clearly not everyone is interested, or maybe might be interested so that they can arrange a hyperspace hop. (This is where it would be nice to know how the mechanics work. Would popping into hyperspace the morning after always work, and thus provide a form of always-effective birth control? When is the window of opportunity best?)

I also would like to know what goes on between T'gellan and Mirrim that she is also happily wanting babies, considering for the longest time everyone, including her, expected her to be a spinster because of her attitude.

_[Same thing that happened to Menolly and Brekke and Lessa, clearly. Babies turn strong independent women into perfect models of patriarchal femininity. Comments also mentioned that the closest we get to the mechanics to this point of hyperspace abortion is that staying a little longer in hyperspace is enough to make it happen. The later books won't actually clarify this past "spending too long in hyperspace kills the fetus,"]_

Getting to the plot again, the Weyr Healer is skeptical about dolphin abilities, despite when one of them pinpoints a place where infection is about to begin again, because there's a needlethorn stuck in the arm of the child, and the headwoman suspected the kids was just faking to get out of chores. Once the dolphins have correctly diagnosed lots of known pregnancies, and then both a broken bone set poorly from a childhood injury and what is likely womb with "growths" that need cleaning, the Healer (after shuddering at the thought of operation, especially in having to go into the uterus through the vagina to do it) is finally convinced.

And then had to perform surgery on a dolphin to stitch up a wound, which will end successfully, despite all the healer's protests, and which takes is to the end of the chapter. No dolphin segment here, even though I would have expected one about the story of the man who stitched up the dolphin and how this meant that the mans were remembering more of their contract.

The Healer's reticence to stitch up a dolphin would make more sense, were it not that this is the Weyr Healer from Eastern, and therefore should be much more used to the idea of stitching up living nonhumans. T'lion even calls him out on it, and the Healer still protests. Anyway, maybe next week things will be back to the usual horrible instead of the special horrible.


	6. Because We Needed A Plot

Last time, Menolly behaved like someone who hadn't been traumatized by patriarchy, Mirrim and T'gellan met dolphins, and the Weyr Healer stitched up one.

**The Dolphins of Pern: Chapter VII: Content Notes: Randian Morality**

Chapter VII picks up the next morning, where everyone is waiting to hear about Boojie, the dolphin that got stitches. He's fine, and the Healer asks for him to come back in a week to get the sutures out, before saying he'll talk about the whole thing to Idarolan and Oldive, who are the two most likely to be interested in the incident.

The actual plot picks up again with T'lion wanting to see Alemi and tell him about the sonar, but the place where Alemi usually is has no sign of the Fisher, but plenty of other people and activities going on. T'lion tells Jayge about it, and he asks T'lion to go get Alemi to reinforce them. They settle on asking the dolphins, since T'lion isn't supposed to interfere in Hold matters. The dolphins get Alemi, and T'lion hears the story of how all these people who were going to establish an illegitimate Hold were captured and then sailed back to their departure point, with punishments and stories with a moral of "if you want to go South, ask first." all around. And a dig at the "self-styled Lady Holdless Thella." 

Which then brings us to Toric. Who is pleased that other people are being invaded, and who extrapolates that the ban's vigorous enforcement means the dragonriders are keeping the choicest land for themselves. He'd like to see people end up holding in those spaces where the dragonriders want to go, as a big middle finger to the entire enterprise. And because he's apparently the most Randian of them all.

> It didn't matter to Toric that these would-be settlers could die from sampling exotic-looking and sweet-smelling tree fruits, that there were hungry and feral beasts quite able to take down a full-grown adult, that there were the most insidious dangers from thorn-poisoning and fevers. Toric's notion was that the strong survived--and if the unfit died, they merited no mourning. What irked him the most was that the Benden Weyrleaders felt they had the right to apportion the South where they wished to bestow it. Just because they'd found some document that told how the Ancients had dealt with settling? Land was held by those strong enough to hang on to it and improve it.

It gets better, but let's stay here for a second and point out that Toric is perfectly okay with other people dying because they don't know any better about the south, because he figures the strong will survive. Which is really more "the lucky and those with the privilege to send others out to die will survive," and is essentially a textbook example of how White people, rich people, and others who believe they are "self-made" or otherwise got to where they are on their own singular effort delude themselves into believing the society at large that supports them doesn't exist or is somehow leeching off of their individual superiority through mechanisms like taxes. Even clear evidence of prior practice or the actual intent of the Ancients isn't enough to sway Toric away from the idea that he, and only he, is correct and authoritative on all matters.

> And then there was that infamous meeting of Weyrleaders and Lord Holders--which he had been unable to attend while he was involved with ousting the renegade Denol from Ierne Island. That's when all those old-womanish Lords had actually established that the dragonriders had the right to control the Southern Continent land grabbings. "Out of respect for the services dragonriders have given Hold and Hall over the centuries of Threadfall." As if tithing to support the indolent riders hadn't been reward enough for dragons doing what they had been bred to do. Much less the gratuities that had always been lavished on dragonriders.

Ah, of course, if someone is improving and holding on _Toric's_ land, that's another story and the interloper has to leave immediately. As with most Randian myths, the hypocrisy is very easily laid bare when what should be a proper Randian event happens to _them_. 

Also, Toric seems very inclined to forget that dragons are doing what they are bred to do - spit flame and kill things. And that essentially the social contract between the mounted flamethrowers and their riders is "we take care of you so that you don't kill us in addition to the Thread." With the destruction of Thread, that contact can be renegotiated, sure, but everyone not a dragonrider is essentially sitting behind the 8-ball in terms of their actual bargaining power. There is essentially nothing stopping the dragonriders from going "Thread is gone now, we've chosen a nice island for all of you to live on, and we're taking the rest of the planet for ourselves." There might be grumbling, but essentially there's no check on them but themselves. Toric believes the riders sit around and do nothing because his land is seeded with grubs, and therefore any damage done by Thread is healed remarkably quickly. He takes the infrastructure for granted and accuses the military of doing nothing. If anyone actually wanted to take his threats and positions seriously, a flyover could destroy most of what he's spent so long to build up.

_[In fairness to Toric, one of the comments points out that Toric has not had the same social contract with dragonriders that everyone else has. Southern Weyr, as such, was meant to be a convalescent hospital, rather than a functioning Weyr, and with the discover of the true purpose of the grubs, Toric hasn't had dragons flying over his land flaming things, because the purpose of dragon flame is to scorch Thread so that it can't destroy crops, trees, and other life. With all the potential exposure protected, either by hiding or by grubs, the purpose of dragons is pretty well moot on Southern. But Toric has still had to tithe and otherwise support a Weyr first full of convalescents, and then exiles and the time-skipped, for no obvious and apparent benefit to himself. So Toric feels slighted that decisions that affect him were made while he was not present to contest them, as we are about to see.]_

> When Toric had heard of that decision, he had been infuriated, especially as it had been voted in behind his back. He'd have stopped the whole notion right then if he'd been able to come. The first insult to him had been that the northern Lords hadn't waited until he could come to a meeting that, when all was said and deplorably done, affected him more than any of them, since he **was** the only confirmed Lord Holder in the South. And lord of a Hold so much larger than anything in the North, including Telgar, that it had been ludicrous to **hold** such a meeting without him. Of course, the Weyrleaders had planned it that way, knowing he would protest. Knowing he would have been able to sway some of the indecisive idiots who had their titles by default and certainly wouldn't have been able to survive a season in the South. He'd've seen that the Southern Continent would be wide open for those with the guts to **work** to hold any land--and apply for confirmation to a **full** Council of Lord Holders and no Weyrleaders present, for it **wasn't** up to dragonriders who held and where! Not in Toric's lexicon.

Toric does have a point that he should have had a seat at the table, since he is the Lord of Southern. But, he had the opportunity to attend - he would have had to suspend or delegate his campaign against Denol to a field marshal or general while he went to the meeting. He chose not to. _[Or he should have sent a deputy or trusted person to represent his position with the Council, so his voice could be heard, but he apparently chose not to do that, either. Toric appears to have been fairly confident some sort of shenanigans would happen at the meeting, but he expected the rest of the Lords to wait for him rather than go ahead. In this monologue, though, we don't know whether it's been a long-standing tradition that all the Lords have to be present to do business or not, and so we have to work only with inferences or deductions, instead of Toric, someone who apparently stands on traditions when it benefits him, explicitly saying so.]_

If he's so certain the decision would have been different with him there, presumably he could appeal and request the Council reconsider the matter, as Lords and without dragonriders present. I think he would find it a difficult appeal, for reasons of not pissing off the mounted flamethrowers and also not wanting to be painted as awful evil people by the Harpers. He's certainly welcome to try, though, but that would mean he has to believe that the council is composed of his peers. Since Toric believes himself an übermensch, the council can't possibly be composed of people enough like him for acknowledgement of their authority.

Essentially, 

Toric is also bitter about having been tricked by the dragonriders into accepting less land than he should have, by his own reckoning, and that the dragonriders didn't help him oust Denol. _[By this point, though, it's been well-established that dragonriders don't involve themselves in "Hold matters", which has been used as a convenient dodge for many things that they probably should have gotten involved in, like Thella. Dealing with an insurrection in your own territory is a lot more firmly in the matter of "Hold matters" that the dragons definitely do not want to be seen taking sides on.]_

But there's a plan. Hamian can go to Landing. His spies report back on developments at Landing. He seeds his chosen people into settlements in the South, so that they will be beholden to him after Thread is done and they are confirmed as Holders, so Toric's bloc will override the North's plan to let the dragonriders settle on the South as a retirement. Because, after all, the old document said that those who hold the land have it, right?

After this interlude where Toric is resurrected as a villain, we go back to dolphins. Boojie is fine, gets his stitches out, thanks the Weyr healer, who seems on board with the idea of being dolphin Healer now. Oldive and Menolly are supportive of more work with dolphins, and after T'lion tries to be modest about his involvement in all the dolphin things, Menolly and Oldive is where we go, who are on a journey of their own to ring up some dolphins in the Fort harbor, so that Oldive can ask for, essentially, ultrasounds for three difficult cases.

> "You're having trouble convincing your Craft of the 'Surgical' treatments the old records recommend."  
>  "Indeed!" Oldive's comment was heartfelt. "The Cesarian to release a womb-held baby is permitted, and the one to remove the pendicks, but not the lengthy repairs or deep delving that Aivas reports were last measures even then. But we don't have the medicines that the Ancients did that would dissolve or shrink other conditions to which occasionally people are subject."  
>  [...Everyone arrives in the harbor, to find a rather large audience of Fishers on hand...]  
>  Master Idarolan had, of course, informed [Masterfisher Curran] of dolphin intelligence. Sebell, also spreading such news, had met with considerable skepticism, especially from those inland who had never seen dolphins escorting ships.

_[Put a pin in the bit where surgeries are somehow a completely culturally un-accepted thing among the Healers, because that's going to become important further on, but also, remember how Pern is supposedly beyond religion and superstition. So that when we get to the point where start seeing anti-surgery propaganda, we can point and laugh more at the insistence that Pern has no religion or superstition. Not that we haven't had plenty of examples already. And also, boggle at how AIVAS hasn't somehow had to engineer the return and primacy of the scientific method all across the planet before everyone can get on board with the new technology and the eventual plan to detonate the engines on the Red Star.]_

Knowledge travels slowly, and new knowledge even more so, but it's rather interesting to see that finally, there's skepticism about things that Harpers say, rather than everyone unquestioningly believing them. I'd like to believe this happened before now, but it hasn't apparently become a thing until it needs to be for the plot.

In any case, food before dolphins, including caviar and chowder for the guests. Then Menolly gets the honor of ringing in the dolphins, having also mentioned that bells are there for dolphins to ring, too. Lots come, joyously, at the sound, and Menolly resolves to write them a song. The dolphins and humans exchange names, and the dolphins are very happy to hear Oldive is a medic. So much so, that when four present themselves to be de-bluefished, they dunk Oldive and Menolly from the boat. And then I Bit sonars Oldive and determines his hump despite all the clothing Oldive has on to hide it. So that's settled. But there are too many parasites to get done in one day, even with all the volunteers, so the dolphins are asked to come back the next day and have more done, while Menolly learns that the Tillek is the oldest, wisest dolphin who keeps all the history and knowledge of the dolphins. (And also a female, because of course generational knowledge is carried by mothers and women.) _[Look, it's another BIPOC stereotype. One with a little more grounding in reality, because of the very real respect for mothers, aunts, aunties, and women of all sorts in the community because of their roles. Many of which involve making sure that the younglings understand the world around them and how they will be perceived, regardless of the reality of any given situation, and in connecting the newest generations to the ones that have come before them, often in times where the world around them wants to crush, suppress, or have them forget or disavow that connection.]_

Oldive sends back a subordinate to bring out a patient who needs dolphin help and is also the kind of patient that asks questions about everything, narratively because she's afraid of everything. And everyone decides that Lessa probably needs to be informed about all of this. Which will start in the next chapter.


	7. Something Else Entirely

Last chapter, Toric gave a very good impression of Snidely Whiplash, if he were also a Social Darwinist and utterly devoted to Rand. And there were dolphin meetings, like there have been for the last several chapters, where the dolphins have to keep re-proving themselves to new audiences. _[One wonders whether the dolphins are tired of this shit in their own spaces as they keep having to perform for the humans so that the humans are able to see them as an intelligent species. Because if they're the unintentional analogues to the indigenous people in the face of colonizers, they absolutely are tired of being thought of only in relation to how they're useful to the humans.]_

**The Dolphins of Pern: Chapter VIII: Content Notes: Arbitrary Skepticism, Child Endangerment**

At the end of the last chapter, the Harpers and Healers decided its time to inform Lessa that there's yet another intelligent creature on Pern and it's worthwhile to pursue a partnership with them. As it is presented to Lessa (by Alemi and Robinton), who is apparently nonplussed at this new knowledge, the dolphins were here longer than the dragons and are more useful than the fire-lizards. Alemi takes this cue and says that the dragons seem to like them, with the narrative saying this means he is "not letting himself be intimidated by the diminutive but forceful Weyrwoman of Benden." Which is still apparently the running gag of Pern - Lessa is short, and a woman, and yet she intimidates grown men! Isn't that funny?

No, it isn't.

There's a quick bit about the Healers, but also interestingly...

> "Master Oldive had a very puzzling patient, which the dolphins at Fort Hold diagnosed as having an internal growth in the belly."  
>  "And that caused enough problems with his Hall," she said dryly. "I really don't like the idea of cutting into human bodies." She gave a little shudder.  
>  "No more than when a child is hard to birth," Alemi said, knowing that Lessa had had to have that surgery.

Wait, how many kids does Lessa _have_? I only know of one, and F'lessan predates the discovery of AIVAS. Which suggests the Cesarean does, too, according to this quote, and would have to be part of the Healer canon of acceptable technique for surgery and if we can have people recovering from C-sections, what exactly is the prohibition on surgery there for? Pern has sterilization materials and apparently enough training on their proper use that an OR would be possible, even if they have very little knowledge of germ theory. 

_[As noted in the previous chapter, even, C-sections are absolutely part of the accepted surgery canon, along with appendectomies, but that's it. Which doesn't make any sense at all, as presumably things that are much less intrusive than both of those surgeries should still be able to be done, then. As is noted in the comments to the orignial, too, Oldive being the Masterhealer should have some significant clout with getting Healers to accept more surgical practice, but we also have had Norist essentially taking what the Harper position on "all must be kept static and traditional" would be if that's waht they actually believed. Which they don't, because they discovered the AI first and saw great opportunities for profit from it.]_

Lessa settles down some when told the dolphins won't interfere with the AIVAS plan, but she pops right back up at the idea of dolphin intelligence.

> "Sea creatures with names?" Lessa exclaimed and her frown returned. That the dragons knew their own names at birth was an indisputable mark of their self-awareness and intelligence. To hear that the dolphins also had names smacked of heresy to the Weyrwoman.

There's that one of those words again, the kind that might not belong. Because heresy requires orthodoxy (which we have in spades, thank you Harper Hall), but also imparts a generally religious flavor to the whole thing (which we seem to be even more rapidly moving toward, despite the statements initially that there aren't theisms or religions in Pern).

Also, Lessa seems oddly perturbed at the possibility of another intelligent species. Maybe she wants the dragonriders to stay extra special?

_[Or, if we think of the humans as exploitative in their outlook, which they are, there's the possibility that Lessa is perturbed by the possibility of an intelligent species that hasn't been placed completely into subservience to the humans and the social order the humans have imposed on themselves and the dragons. Or, continuing the reading of dolphins as BIPOC, Lessa, the powerful white woman, is perturbed that beings she's been conditioned to think of as stupid, disposable, and good maybe for subservience at best are actually intelligent, social, and have a culture of their own that thrives. It's possible everyone has been slotting dolphins into the same space as drudges, rather than dragons, and only those who have done significant work with the dolphins begin to understand the truth._

_Of course, it would also help if the dolphins were more independent and social by themselves, instead of apparently really really willing to get back into the contract they had with humans before, because oh boy is it problematic to suggest that any intelligent species wants to willingly go along with a contract that isn't equal to them. (Or it's a condemnation of those who gave mentasynth to the dolphins and tweaked them to be predisposed to subservience with humans, in the same way that Kitti Ping tweaked the dragons to pair-bond so tightly with humans.)]_

As it is, Lessa heads out to do more land inspections so that new Holds can be granted in the South, and we finally get an idea of what kind of personnel are needed to get one up and running, even if the exact arrangements aren't made clear.

> Still, sometimes one has to wait until there were sufficient representatives of the crafthalls to provide self-sufficiency within each new holding, and at least one journeyman or journeywoman healer who could tend the needs of several holds.

So, essentially you need enough crafters to oversee the work of resource extraction, construction, husbandry, farming, and teaching, plus medicine, then enough people to do all that work underneath the supervision of those crafters, in the name of the noble who is going to get the land grant and all the profits from it.

Tell me again why anyone expects this system to survive for very long past the end of Thread? Inertia, maybe?

As it is, Lessa surveys, but the narrative switches to Jayge, furious at being invaded. He asks Alemi if the dolphins will patrol his seas and alert them to any more intrusive boats and their passengers. Because while Alemi and Jayge are sympathetic to "the dreadful conditions of the holdless, crammed into the caves at Igen and other, even less salubrious places in the North", rules are rules and you can't just cross a border illegally and expect to be able to make a life for yourself, no matter how awful it is where you are. _[This, despite the supposition that there's enough land for everyone to have their own, once the fullness of the South is explored and mapped out. Possibly even after the dragonriders take their share of the remaining space. It's the same libertarian strain that pulls the ladder up after itself, saying that someone else has to do it all themselves, somewhere else, rather than providing a way to help others get established. Assuming the invaders weren't sent with the idea of "kill anybody who's already there and take their stuff" as their mandate, Jayge could enlarge and solidify his Holding by taking on all of his invaders as vassals and setting them to the task of claring out and developing their own holds near him. Toric would be pissed at the possibility of competition in his area, but a few runs of trying to invade Jayge, only to find out that Jayge expanded his holding by the land those invaders took, would presumably be enough for Toric to pass the word along to leave Jayge alone._

_Or, you know, Jayge could welcome the people in, explain to them what's going on, and then point them at land that's not his for them to clear and settle and build their own spaces, because the alternative would be going back to somewhere they had nothing and were treated like nothing. But, of course, feudalism and capitalism both say there's no profit in being nice to someone who isn't going to be indebted to you for more than you were nice to them for.]_

Alemi reflects on having to help flush out the renegades that Toric wanted dealt with, acknowledging how easy it would have been with dragonriders, while approving of their avoidance of "partisan leanings". Alemi thinks it's appropriate for dragonriders to have a retirement space, that Idarolan said there's more than enough land for everyone in the South, and that it would be greedy to ask for more than what one really needed to do the job. And then Robinton interrupts, telling us that the entire sequence between Jayge and Alemi and all of this is a flashback, and the correct time period is right after they both left Lessa at Benden. Who isn't being told about the dolphin patrols. Robinton wants to know more about the dolphins and their treatment by human Healers, as Alemi marvels that Robinton is free, given that there are "archivists and harpers" arranging and copying the information in AIVAS's data banks. Unless they're also new for AIVAS, I guess I have to take back the previous comment about there being no archivists on Pern to organize and make available the data and knowledge they have. I can still complain about the fact that if they have existed, they've done a _shit_ job at it.

As they talk, Robinton is surprised to learn that dolphins, being mammalian, have many of the same disease issues and problems that humans can have, like heart attacks. Alemi mentions having come across six dolphins all beached and dead, which were usually matters of pollution, according to the AI. Robinton offers a spirited defense as to why that won't happen again:

> "We can--perhaps--be grateful that what the Ancients had, Pern's resources will not provide. That will be our saving."  
>  "Oh?" Alemi wasn't above a little prompting.  
>  Master Robinton's mobile gave lot with a knowing smile. "Despite all we have endured since the Dawn Sisters took their orbit above us, the world has stayed remarkably well in the parameters set out by the colony founders. Of course, we couldn't know that we were abiding by those precepts"--he grinned roguishly at Alemi--"but the fact of the matter is that we did keep to just the technology needed to survive. Once the threat of Thread is abolished, we can improve the quality of our lives and still remain within these precepts: a world that does not require as much of the sophisticated doodads and technology that so obsessed our ancestors. We'll be the better for it."

That's not even the slightest bit true, Robinton, but it sounds nice. Fandarel's drive for efficiency could easily be matched by a Jancis-Piemur partnership for innovation. And every entity that wants to live as a land holder will develop new technology to displace anyone who has been there before. Now, if Pern has somehow managed to come into being as a world without any radioactive elements, it's entirely possible it will take a very long time to develop space technologies...and atomic weapons, but they have electricity and whatever they can extract out of AIVAS before it self-terminates, assuming that the termination wipes all the data stores. If the data survives AIVAS, then essentially it only takes however long understanding the science takes before they jump from steampunk to cyberpunk. And it really just takes a dragonrider deciding to test the limits of the dragon's abilities before there's mining of space objects and/or waystations set up between Pern and the galaxy the colonists tried to leave behind. There are far too many ways that post-Thread Pern can exceed those precepts, and it won't take much of a deliberate action to do so.

_[I would normally say "wait for it" here, except there really isn't a desire to write the story of what happened on Pern after they defeated the existential threat, as once we get done with the sequence of these stories at the edge of the end of Thread, the next author jumps way far back in time to keep telling these kinds of stories, instead of progressing forward with the narrative to three (or three hundred) generations After Thread to see what's going on. The thought of that much creativity being loosed on Pern is apparently a scary thing.]_

Robinton suggests the dragons will be there after Thread is gone, and the action shifts back to T'lion taking flak about potentially neglecting his dragon in his enthusiasm for dolphins, even though the dolphins are quite helpful and Gadareth doesn't feel neglected at all. Alemi is knowing and conspiratorial with T'lion about talking and working with dolphins, and their propensity to fling water at everyone they like. In going to collect Boskoney, Menolly's replacement at Paradise River, to take him to Landing, T'lion tells Readis that he talks to dolphins, which will no doubt precipitate a lot of headaches from Aramina about someone having encouraged Readis. Especially since T'lion enjoys talking to Readis about the exploits and stories he has with dolphins. So the two of them hatch a plan to have Readis come to Alemi's dock and talk and swim with the dolphins while T'lion is there. That way, Readis isn't breaking his promise to go be at the water alone, and he gets to indulge in dolphins. Who specifically say Readis's foot has a thorn in it, even though Readis doesn't feel anything. So when Readis takes ill, everyone thinks it's just a fever that he'll get over, but T'lion gets the information that Readis stepped on a sea thorn, which is worse than the nasty land ones. He eventually tells Boskoney everything, and that manages to get Readis to a dolphin, and they get the poison out, but not before the possibility of Readis not getting full use of his right leg. Boskoney doesn't tell T'lion this while he's in the middle of recriminations, but instead mentions that Readis is now under Healer orders to have to swim on a daily basis. Which is a still-uncomfortable reminder of suffering that T'lion's brother endured, but the swimming part is at least a little bit of a buoy for him. The chapter ends on this note, with Readis happy that he gets to swim with the dolphins and everyone else mostly just happy he's alive.

I'm pretty much over the arbitrary skepticism about dolphins at this point. If their sonar can diagnose things, then someone should be thinking about it when there are injuries, and using it if they're lucky enough to have them nearby. Essentially, Readis was preventable at this point, because the dolphins are there and happy to do stuff like sonar. But there seems to be a thing from the author that talented children are supposed to be disfigured in some way as a way of keeping them from...hubris? Upsetting the social order before its ready? I don't know.

Next week, we get to see the consequences of actions.

_[There's a lot of gaslighting and then recriminations in the next author's books, despite there being no need for the person claiming a thing to be disbelieved, and no really good reason to do it, either. But the plot dictates that there has to be disaster, and therefore the people who could most sensibly help avoid said disaster or who know best how to handle it have to be disbelieved and not listened to until they're super important and necessary to fix the eminently preventable disaster. This is mostly to remind myself that that idea did not spring forth from the new author's forehead fully formed, but has its roots here and in earlier books of the series. Characterization is always subordinate to plot, rather than plot being reworked to be consistent with characterization.]_


	8. Consequences

Last time, Readis got infected by a thorn from the sea and it spread to the point where he's likely to have lasting physical damage, Robinton expressed confidence that Pern won't exceed its original mandate, and everyone continued to figure out how the dolphins fit into all of this.

**The Dolphins of Pern: Chapter IX: Content Notes: Ableism**

The narrative fast-forwards four Turns through the run up to and the execution of the plan to alter the wanderer's orbit to end Thread as a threat forever. Readis is used as a surrogate for everyone who assumed that altered orbit meant the immediate cessation of Thread and Jayge sketches out the idea of Thread leaving after the current Pass ends. Physically, Readis has some effects from the thorn.

> Jayge grinned at his son, tall for his eleven Turns, and tried not to glance down at the wasted right leg, which cocked on tiptoe beside the uninjured left foot. He ruffled Readis's curly hair and thought instead that it was unfair for the boys in the family to have the curls while the two girls had straight hair.

And to think this could have been prevented, had someone actually believed the dolphin report the first time. (The narrative said T'lion got busy and didn't remind Readis to have his foot checked out. But again, nobody took the dolphin seriously, despite having no reason not to.) _[And I'm now reminded of the bit earlier in the book where the dolphins used their ultrasound to diagnose another child who was being accused of faking it to get out of work. Apparently, the default setting when children claim they're in pain is to not believe them, rather than to have them checked out by the Healers. And if there are a lot of children who are essentially playing hooky from their duties this way, perhaps it's time to look into why. But that's coming from the perspective of someone in a society that considers it worthwhile for all children to have a childhood, and an adolescence, rather than requiring them to start doing wage work or farm work as soon as they are old enough to begin. The privilege of childhood is reserved for those rich enough not to have to have their children start working immediately.]_

Also, it is apparently either a preference of Jayge's or of Pernese men that their women have curly hair. How many bets on whether or not the curling iron manages to make itself into the list of technology that's okay?

As things are, the actual reason for the scene is that Readis and his sisters have been enrolled in a school at Landing. Readis is suspicious.

> "You mean, because of my leg I have to go away?"  
>  "There's not a thing wrong with Kami and Pardure, my young lad!" his father said sternly.

Barring the awkward phrasing there, as Jayge would probably be more familiar with his son, after all, Jayge is not exactly doing a great job of telling Readis that his disability isn't the reason for his removal. If there's "nothing wrong" with the other two, all of means is that they got in for some other reason. Given the type of place Pern is about disability, it's entirely possible that Readis _is_ being sent away because of that disability, so that he, like Menolly, can turn out to be cripspiration for others about what you can do when you put your mind to it.

> Readis was not completely mollified. He hated anyone making concessions for him. He rode the small runner Lord Jaxom had trained for him only because Ruth said that he, the white dragon, had selected the beast for Readis, who had been so good about scrubbing his hide all these Turns. The little creature had made it possible for Readis to go wherever the other youngsters of the Hold roamed: the boy was as good a rider as he was a swimmer. Aramina preferred him to use Delky, the runner--anything to keep him out of the water and away from the dolphins. She could not be convinced that the dolphins were not responsible for his illness and subsequent crippling. It was Aramina who had heard about the proposed special classes to be held in the Admin Building, using the information machines that were the legacy of Aivas. Menolly had told Alemi, who had requested the concession not only for his eldest daughter, but for Readis as well.  
>  [...how will he get there? Dragons...]  
>  [Readis had] never been able to convince his mother that T'lion wasn't in some way responsible for his illness. He'd told her time and again that the dragonrider had told him, twice, to go see Temma for the thorn and he'd forgotten. So his illness, and his bad leg, were **not** T'lion's fault, but his own.

And we have Aramina doing what, really, many people would do, but also likely exacerbated by her own experiences - trying to find a spot to plant the blame on when there isn't necessarily a place to put it. Because humans like to believe they can control things, and Aramina's trauma is around a thing she theoretically could control by suppressing it. If she could have stopped T'lion, or if Readis wasn't so obsessed, the tragedy could have been averted. Like if only ten year-old Aramina could not talk to dragons.

_[Less charitably, Aramina is also doing what many people would do, by frantically trying to find someone else to blame other than herself for what happened. Because if Aramina hadn't very specifically forbidden Readis to associate with dolphins, and Alemi and Jayge to tell him about dolphins, then by the time this happened and their ultrasound powers were known, T'lion wouldn't have had to tell Readis, a child, to remember to see the Healer about an injury the dolphins said he had, but instead, would have been able to send Readis to the Healer directly to tell her about the injury he has, without the worry that the story of him hanging out with the dolphins would get back to Aramina. And that if Aramina had been able to seek counseling and help and try working through her trauma, she wouldn't be irrationally prejudiced against dolphins and Readis having a knack for working with them, necessitating all of the secrecy, instead of allowing Readis to enjoy his interest out in the open, with support from his friends and others. Of course, this is not a thing that Aramina will be able to admit to, and Pernese society is more than happ to help her remain unaware that her own actions likely directly contributed to this result. Back here in 21st c. Terra, something like this, where a child comes out, or speaks out about their abuse, or cuts off contact entirely with their parents, the parents that are most in need of examination of themselves are usually the ones who are the most defensive about what role they had to play in how things turned out.]_

Getting back to the plot, the classes at Admin are Robinton's idea, with AIVAS's support - train the youngsters, who don't have preconceptions, so that they will spread the good tech and knowledge, making it possible for everyone to have power generation and electric tools. Jayge is studying wind and hydroelectric power, to figure out which is best suited for what Hold, the powered looms, lights, and fans are good for comfort, and Alemi is very keen about manufacturing ice to keep the fish catches fresher longer.

There is a calculation here - this training, while good for Readis in general, will "also make the boy more acceptable to the Council of Holders when it came time for him to be confirmed in his holding." - because his disability will work against him, Jayge? How ableist is the Council, then, hmm?

On the day before the planned start for the school, however, Robinton dies and AIVAS suicides, and so there is eventually a very large cluster of loudly weeping adults and keening fire-lizards. The narrative follows Readis as he essentially helps care for the adults during the night and in the next morning when he wakes up, by taking care of morning chores and feeding the smaller children. Eventually, the entire hold is bid to come out to Monaco Bay for the funeral and burial at sea.

Essentially, the entirely of Pern, humans, dragons, fire-lizards, and dolphins alike, turns out for the burial. Ruth stays behind in vigil even after everyone else leaves.

Three days after that, class begins. Readis is part of class twenty-one, named after the Turn, under the direction of Master Samvel, and the Transition Phase (so named later) begins. But Chapter IX ends.

Not a lot of content here that's unique, because the funeral and material we've already covered takes up most of it. Chapter X starts with a time-skip, so we're again going to be denied seeing the immediate aftermath of the death of Robinton and AIVAS, skipping what is likely a pivotal point in Pernese history. I wish that we spent more time in the interesting and important points in time and instead of glossing over them and spending more time with our heroes, whomever they may be.

_[Forserious. The death of Robinton and AIVAS and the immediate aftermath of that situation had to be a time of great potential for Pern, because the power struggle over the AI is done, the master manipulator is no longer alive, so there's the possibility of stealing a march on his successor, and we're literally at the tipping point of whether Pern decides to go forward, headlong, into the technological era or to say "we've gotten rid of Thread, therefore we don't need any more of this technological innovation" and try to turn back to a pre-AIVAS world. But we don't get any of that power struggle at all, we don't find out who was in favor, who was opposed, who found themselves ostracized from various guilds for not adopting a progressive stance, who found themselves ostracized from guilds for not adopting a tradition-focused stance, all of the sort of thing that would make for some neat worldbuilding, but is ultimately going to be cast aside for a story about a boy and his dolphins instead. The authors do this regularly, but it's still kind of frustrating to go "there's a book there! There's maybe even three!" and have it not be used.]_


	9. Collegial Experiences

Last chapter, we finally passed the last parts of All The Weyrs of Pern and are now sailing one again into times not already known, with the setup that Readis has been enrolled in a boarding school to learn the data that AIVAS left behind.

**The Dolphins of Pern: Chapter X: Content Notes: None noticed**

It has been three years since then, the narrative tells us at the beginning of the chapter, denying us the ability to see what sort of political machinations went into Pern with the death of Robinton.

Save a few - Sebell is able to get the other Masters to go along with Robinton's educational plan, a plan they had firmly rejected while Robinton was alive. That plan puts the Harpers in charge of most of the new education, so much so that the Harpers are no longer primarily the house of musicians. Menolly, appropriately, is quite bitter that it took Robinton dying before the other Masters were willing to listen to his plan. _[Keep a pin in that idea, as one of the later books will reveal that the group we know of as the Harpers developed from the College, which was much more akin to a Terran university setting, rather than itinerant bards doing teaching and musicianship all over the planet.]_

Fandarel has less trouble with the adoption of technology, and both Smiths and Healers now have to attend courses on the knowledge AIVAS left behind that pertains to their Crafts. Oldive, unfortunately, still gets stiff resistance to the new techniques AIVAS left along his own masters, but is able to impart them to the new apprentices that are more concerned with easing suffering and saving life, rather than their own egos. (Perhaps not unlike the Healers of the era of the author and us...)

Dolphin sonar is adopted reasonably well, as are power generators for most Holds, although an ultrasound can only tell that something foreign is there, and not necessarily what it is.

And there's a Computer Craft, even though the Smithcraft is not yet able to recreate circuit boards and transistors that will be necessary to build new machines. (Groghe wanted to have one of his own, likely as a status symbol, but it was not to be.)

Readis's studies include physical education, including team sport from the AIVAS files (baseball, association football, and polo) and unspecified water sport, which Readis suspects is in deference to his disability, but also sees it as possibly practical knowledge, with as many people as there are taking journeys by sea. _[The water sport could be water polo, given how few team aquatic sports there are on the Olympic program. If so, though, that doesn't put Readis at any sort of advantage, because there's an awful lot of keeping yourself afloat while someone is trying to drown you in water polo.]_

There's a field trip to Honshu, where F'lessan has appointed himself caretaker and Holder (ish) of the museum collections of murals, tools, and artifacts, although the word isn't used specifically in the narrative. F'lessan asks Readis about his studies and his future plans, specifically for the time when he's not going to be Holder on account of Jayge being quite healthy and young.

Readis wants to be a dolphineer. F'lessan approves.

> "And with you living right on Paradise River and the sea, you must make good use of them."  
>  Readis mumbled a noncommittal answer. This was not the time to confide home problems--nor the person to confide them to.  
>  Oblivious to the boy's hesitation, F'lessan went on. "You might even start up your own crafthall. That's what Benelek did, you know, by learning all he could about Aivas's terminals."  
>  "He did?"  
>  "He did!" Then F'lessan gave Readis a mischievous grin. "Right now, you and all the other Landing students have a brilliant chance to make sure that Pern **becomes** what the Ancients wanted it to be **before** Thread interrupted their progress.

That would make more sense if we had more than just the word of a xenocidal AI with a demonstrated capacity for omission and shading as to what the Ancients actually wanted. Certainly they wanted Thread gone. Anything past that is no guarantees, as even in the canonical books we have, there's an expected technology level well above what Pern even has now. Later on, when Readis quotes the charter to Alemi, it only mentions "a good standard of living using the lowest possible form of technology needed to supply essential services and a good, rounded lifestyle" in a bid to avoid overspecialization. If we knew what they considered "essential services", that would help, because Pern was theoretically fulfilling that requirement before AIVAS. Like all subsistence life, it was brutally hard and didn't leave much time for anything but work, but it was stable and working. _[If, however, what they meant was something much more like "farming, but with mechanization enough that you don't have to do more than set the GPS-enabled combine and let it do its thing", then we're nowhere near what the Ancients thought was the lowest possible form of technology.]_

> It's up to us, and you and the next generation, to be sure we pick up the plan where they left off and see that Pern becomes the planet they envisioned. That's what most be done if Pern is to be what it **could** be. D'you see that? That's what Master Robinton wanted. It's what my parents want. But not all the Holders or Mastercraftsmen. They're still hanging back with what's comfortable and familiar. He narrowed his eyes slightly to assess the impact of his words on his audience. "It's going to be difficult, the next twenty-odd Turns, to set in place what Pern will be now that Thread has stopped."

Readis does point out that it hasn't stopped yet, and F'lessan acknowledges that.

However, as much as F'lessan wants to paint the more reluctant to go along into the technological era as villains, many of them are looking at this revolution as loss of their power. Holders will no longer be able to use the threat of Thread to maintain their populations. Crafters will find themselves undercut by the technological production of goods or mass farming techniques or other reasons why they might want to hold on to their monopoly powers. Dragonriders have essentially put themselves out of work unless they decide to engage in the practices that Sean Connell found abhorrent to the majesty of the dragons.

Not everyone is on board with this change, because a lot of people who have power now stand to lose it.

Readis is not concerned with this, though, but instead with the possibility of being both a master dolphineer and a Lord Holder.

> Of course, his mother would have an attack if he even whispered of his interest in the dolphins around her. She persisted in believing that it was the dolphins who had put his life at risk when it was the other way round. His father might understand, especially now that the dolphins had shown to be useful in so many ways, guarding the coastline and warning them of bad squalls and good fishing. Certainly mastering another Craft would only show the Lord Holders that Readis, son of Jayge and Aramina, was that much more capable of managing an important Southern Hold like Paradise.

Utterly possible, Readis. But there's still a lot of ableism to get through before you could be confirmed.

Back at the school, Readis goes diving into the archives to see what the actual plan was for Pern, and discovers the charter. And that F'lessan was considered not a very serious anything until he took hold of Honshu.

However, since dragons aren't part of the charter, Readis ends up in the same situation as the reader - now that there's a definite end point to Thread, what do the dragons do afterward?

We get a small clue in that blues and greens have taken up shipping as a possible trade, which young dragons of brown and bronze, pre-Theadfall, can join in without it being demeaning to them. Master Samvel notes Readis's distraction, and essentially gives him the advice that the dragonriders will tend to themselves, and so there's not really a big need for worry about that question.

Which pushes Readis back in the direction of dolphins, their communication signals, and research into SCUBA gear for further underwater matters. Readis thinks it would be good to commission a crafter to make an aqualung, and maybe a wetsuit, if they could, and runs the idea past Alemi, who thinks it's a good idea but isn't willing to stamp his name on it for cover, because Aramina. Who is again noted as being irrational about dolphins and Readis, even if there's at least a partial grasp going around as to _why_ Aramina is very touchy on the subject of children being injured over close association with intelligent creatures.

Alemi suggests talking to Jayge, but Readis declares it a non-starter and instead shows the plans to T'lion at Landing, who willingly signs on as a partner and then offers to have Readis see the pod that answers his bell. They swim with dolphins and clean Gadareth and then come back to the shore to continue pooling money together to commission the aqualung. And T'lion talks about working in the mines with Gadareth and overflying all the possible spaces he might want to settle down in at retirement.

T'lion returns with the news that Readis is not the only one interested in commissioning an aqualung, and that the main stopping point right now is that there isn't any elastic material that will be able to hold the mask to the face and create a watertight seal. Idarolan wants one, much to the consternation of the other Masterfishers, who think he's too old to get involved in such things. Toric has already ordered ten. T'lion put in a good word for Readis, but it looks like they'll have to wait. T'lion also suggests that Readis follow in the tradition of Northern Lord Holders and get himself established with a small hold on the Paradise River lands, where he could, essentially, run a dolphineer hall of of his garage.

On that note, and the waiting part, the chapter ends. 

This tension between Aramina's PTSD and Readis's willingness to bend every rule that's in his way (and receive support from everyone else about it) is going to explode horribly when it comes to fruition. But since nobody on Pern still practices the therapeutic arts, and somehow, nobody rediscovered its virtues over the 2500-year period, Aramina is at a severe disadvantage when it comes to coping and functioning effectively with her traumas. _[and therefore not projecting onto Readis her own worries and using her authority as his parent to force him to avoid his passions, which will only drive them further underground and away from her, because at this point, Readis has far many more people supporting him and his ambitions than he has forbidding them, to the point where if/when he decides to up and vanish himself, there's a good lot of people who will know where he is and won't tell his parents at all.]_

Next week opens with what may very well be the first indication that technology is causing society to rupture at the seams. (In a good way, in theory.)


	10. Intelligent Signals

Last time, Readis talked with F'lessan, who encouraged him to embrace the role of guiding Pern to a satisfactory post-Thread society, and T'lion, who encouraged him to get a plot of land of his own and start running a dolphineers house out of it. Readis also used T'lion as a business partner and cover to request some underwater breathing gear discovered in the AIVAS archives.

**The Dolphins of Pern: Chapter XI: Content Notes: Speciesism, child abuse**

The chapter opens with Fandarel coming to see the Benden Weyrleaders, with R'mart, G'dened, and Talmor also in attendance because of work being done on the relocation of dragons. The dragons indicate the presence of Masterminer Nicat, but he does not appear immediately with the Master Smith, and there is a nod that since they had similar outlooks on efficiency, Fandarel might be the one that misses AIVAS the most.

> "Maybe he has this 'radio' he's been so eager to produce," Lessa said, her smile partly for the many attempts the huge Smith had made to initiate some sort of instant communications system for those who had neither dragon nor fire-lizard. He'd been at it since that half-successful attempt at the beginning of the Pass.  
>  "That would account for Master Nicat's appearance," F'lar said. The Masterminer had collaborated with the Mastersmith to find the raw elements, like metals, crystal, and some of the plastics that Aivas had listed as necessary to the production of "electronic" devices.

I...thought that most plastics were petroleum products and had to be manufactured, but at least there's been statements that petroleum exists in some quantity on Pern. And it's thoroughly possible to generate a good crystal radio with the technology that Pern has, since the telegraph idea did work. I admit, I didn't think it possible to manufacture vacuum tubes, but there's power, so it's entirely possible. And there are glowing timepieces, so presumably fine gears and quartz are in use, too. It would be entirely possible to produce an electro-mechanical line of sight kind of radio.

Fandarel enters, sees the products of the meetings so far, and asks for more slowness in the settlement of the South, as well as confirming that there are a lot of bribes going around to get people South unofficially. When Lessa asks where Nicat is, Fandarel holds up an object "almost lost in his huge hand", and calls Nicat through it.

> "Ah! You've produced the radio!" Lessa cried.  
>  "I have produced an electronic device," Fandarel corrected her. "An improvement on the radios that were mentioned in the history files, and more nearly what the Ancients used to communicate when they were setting up their stakeholds. The old weather satellite that has been giving us predictions is also able to bounce signals, as is the Yokohama. With such hand units as these, we may communicate across long distances--once we've made them more efficient."

_[A cocowhat. Were you expecting something else?]_

Oh, _hell_ no. You want me to believe that we've gone from hydro power for printing presses and large industry to _transistor two-way satellite radios_ in the span of four _[seven?]_ Turns? Even if guided by the invisible dead hand of the AI, that's asking a lot and handwaving a lot of infrastructure that would have to be put into place. I would believe a vacuum tube radio at a desk somewhere connected to an absurdly high up broadcast tower, but satellite-bounced handheld units says that miniaturization has happened effectively, as well as battery construction and something like circuit boards. Although, now that I think about it, a few chapters back, there are requests to put terminals with database connections into various Holds in the North, which means I missed the spot where Pern developed a telecommunications infrastructure to handle all of that terminal material and its either absurdly-strong wireless connections or its transcontinental buried communications cables. For a supposedly resource-poor world, Pern is coming up aces with the metals and materials needed for high technology.

And they are transistor radios because Fandarel admits as much in the context of the discussion about bribes (Toric and others are apparently offering them) and available settlement land.

> "We will need a work force to make the transistors required and to assemble the components. They will have to be trained, and we will need at least one knowledgeable person of journey rank to oversee the work. Master Benelek needs all the young folk he can train for the terminals and cannot give the Hall more time. I have a long list of those who have requested this efficient and effective little device.

Unless the galactic civilization back home is using much more exotic materials in their technology, Pern had a lot more resources than anyone was led to believe.

[Rescue Run and Avril Bitra's scheme to get rich are the closest we've had to suggestions of what Pern might have that would be helpful for 20th c. technology, and all of the things that we would think of as very good things, like gold, diamond, other gems, and platinum, were basically described as worthless to the Federated Sentient Planets. So "Resources Negligible" could be "from the point of view of the highly technological society in the FSP" but not actually mean "there's very little of it here." Although that then makes me wonder what the AI is doing loaded up with plans for computers and other technologies that his the sweet spot of transistors, petroleum products, and various precious metals. Maybe the scouting report was a little more thorough than we realized, and the colonists could tailor their databases for producing goods from the local supplies?

_Even so, this is a highly jarring situation of Pern suddenly having everything it needs to rapidly jump across eras and technology levels when up until only a very little while ago, it was an early modern pastiche of the Italian city-states and had the technology and methods to match. I wouldn't be surprised at all if the author decided to "forget" or handwave the "Resources Negligible" from the earlier story in favor of the story she wanted to tell now.]_

So Fandarel's swamped, Nicat is overwhelmed for mining demand, and is now being asked to provide high quality stonemasonry to be shipped South for settlement-building, asking for people he doesn't have. The Benden Weyrleader wonders why he agreed to supervise the move, to which Fandarel and Nicat both say he's the only one who could be trusted with it. Eventually, Fandarel requests the elderly of Nicat's workers to help assemble more radios, as it seems to be doing well for the elderly Smiths, who are happy for the extra income. Everyone promises to say that the holdup of going South is because there aren't enough qualified people, which is actually true.

Fandarel leaves a radio with the Benden Weyrleaders, and then the two Masters take their leave. After that whirlwind, Lessa and R'mart tag-team an important observation.

> "I wonder if he knew just how much he [AIVAS] was altering our whole lives," Lessa said, making a sweeping movement with one arm.  
>  "Quite likely he did," R'mart said sardonically, "which is why he quit on us before we could disconnect him, or whatever it is one does with a machine."  
>  "He could have stayed around until we were well into the transition," Lessa said, sounding slightly mutinous.

By its own admission, AIVAS deliberately shut itself down at the crucial point so that the humans wouldn't get into disagreements with it. R'mart correctly articulates that it was a deliberate decision meant to forestall anyone walking off the path set in front of them, or seriously disputing whether the path was the right one at all. It's a very Robinton thing to do.

The Benden Weyrleaders take a walk after the meeting ends, and we get the first confirmation of the reasons why the dragonriders are so ready to go independent, even when they have a gravy train waiting for them even in the post-Thread era. Possibly because nobody has died or taken over the Weyrleader spot at Benden during this entire time, and because Lessa ends up causing the situation that he remembers, the Benden Weyrleader has the sole institutional memory of the end of the last Long Interval: One Weyr, with three Holds tithing their worst fruits instead of their first fruits.

The Benden Weyrleader suspects that at the end of Thread, all the Holds and Crafts are going to, if not immediately give them the finger and proclaim they're not sending any more tribute, over time decide that the time of dragonriders has passed and they don't need to honor those old obligations any more. He's not wrong. The long tail of loyalty could go for several generations, but eventually it's going to be unprofitable. An independent Confederation of Weyrs would make it much easier for the dragonriders to continue being part of Pern, even though the laying numbers are going to take a nosedive. Assuming they don't slot into the role of being the world police or military, deliberately outside the Holds and the Crafts and keeping them both from overrunning each other out of pique.

Lessa thinks dragonriders will slot into those roles afterward, but also thinks Toric will be the one to bring the action to break the traditional covenant as revenge for being deceived at the true size of Southern.

The narrative then shifts over to the dolphins ringing the bell at Tillek to warn Idarolan of a "bad blow, bad bad _bad_ blow" coming. Because Idarolan is pod leader for the fish boats (and because he built a very nice marina and hospital for the dolphins). Idarolan asks Iggy, the dolphin, to chart the course on a specific dolphin-friendly map he had made, and then asks them to warn any fishing boats in the path before giving thank you fish to all the messengers. Idarolan drafts messages to be sent by fire-lizard to the land holders in the path of the hurricane, before musing that Toric would be annoying if he didn't get the first message, that people who believed the uptick in bad storms was due to the Red Star being knocked out of orbit are lacking knowledge, and that how people got on without dolphins was a bad old time.

_[We know that the gravitational pull of large celestial bodies creates things like tidal motion, but I would have expected that if the Red Star's gravity had effects on weather patterns of Pern, the weather would have had less strong storms rather than more. Which might be Idarolan's conclusion as well. We have a situation where the weather cycle is moving toward more strong storms (or, perhaps, the increased activity in all production, power generation, and the like is causing climate effects that the Pernese don't understand, given that it'll still be some time before climate change surfaces in the public discourse in the wake of several once-in-a-millenium events happening in relatively swift succession here on 21st c. Terra), but, again, people draw conclusions with the information they have, and the biggest event they can think of that would be attributable is the shifting of the Red Star's orbit. Tell me again how Pern is somehow without superstition?]_

The action then shifts to Toric receiving Idarolan's message, after a short internal monologue about how he's been sowing seeds of discord in all the Lord Holders about how Benden shouldn't be allowed to control the land apportionment in the South, as well as all the settlements he's gotten supplied with all the people who resent the society as it is currently constructed (or resent those who have been promoted instead of themselves). He intends to sabotage the dragonriders, and believes this big storm might be the perfect time to put the plan into motion.

He's also entirely not on board with dolphins.

> The shipfish may have proved unexpectedly useful in telling fishmen where the schools were running, but he was not at all their advocate. He resented talking animals: speech was a human attribute. Mammals or not, the creatures were **not** equal to humans, and there was no way he would change his mind on that score. Humans planned ahead: dolphins only cooperated with humans because humans amused them, created "games" for them to play. Life was not a game! The very notion of providing amusement to an animal irritated Toric to the core. And he didn't like their latest "game": patrolling the coastline. He had his own plans for the coastline.

Okay, at this point, barring authorial interference, I really can't see how Toric is allowed to continue. He got sent down to Southern as a way of trying to get him out of influencing others, and then Jaxom and Lessa and everyone humiliated him, and he's theoretically had Piemur (although last we checked, Piemur had divided loyalties between Robinton and Toric, assuming he wasn't playing a long con) as a Harper assigned to him for years now. Toric hates intelligent animals, the Benden Weyrleaders, and most of the other Lord Holders that he thinks have slighted him on a regular basis. Toric should be a person that nobody listens to because he doesn't seem to have done anything to gather himself allies, and all that we've seen of him seems to indicate he has a very caustic personality. Yet somehow he's the voice of the dissatisfied, as opposed to someone more winsome and better connected to the Lords Holder. Toric (and Norist) are the people that the _actual_ group interested in social change facepalms at, because they're cartoonish. They would only rise to power if it turned out that Groghe was a supporter and decided it was a good time to legitimize them.

Sure, the plot needs villains, but it needs _better_ ones if we don't want to have them come off as strawpeople.

_[As you might expect, cartoonish villainy has been and will continue to be a hallmark of knowing who the narrative disapproves of. These is a fault in the writing, because the worldbuilding and the setting certainly supports the possibility of complex and sympathetic villains who are trying to make things better for everyone, or at least to try and shake the grip that the Holds, Weyrs, and Crafts have on all the wealth and power in society, so that the average peasant has a chance to not be locked into a short life where they've been farming since they were old enough to swing a hoe or drive a plow.]_

The next section is essentially "the hurricane comes, and does what it does best - uprooting nature and structure alike in its path." Of note is that Landing and Monaco Bay don't take a lot of damage, but Cove Hold and Paradise River are flooded out, and T'lion remarks that during the windstorm he couldn't actually get enough altitude to safely travel between. I don't think that's strictly true, unless there's been a requirement for speed or something that could only be obtained by flying to warp into hyperspace. I would totally understand not going because the _destination_ has too much wind to safely navigate, because not all dragons have the ability to safely navigate to Ruth's accuracy, but there's not a requirement that I know of that says the takeoff point has to also be _[all thar far]_ in the air for things to work. _[There's some yelling about reaching a minimum altitude before popping into hyperspace in earlier books, and in later ones, as a "don't do stunts in front of the younglings, lest they get ideas" sort of thing, rather than a "there needs to be a minimum distance around you to make sure the only thing you're carrying with you is air to replace the air at the destination with" explanation. Because nobody really talks about the time that J'rkwad sandblasted his entire audience by trying to pop in too low and the air displaced a perfect hole's worth of sand to the audience. All we have is the weyrling discovered entombed in rock, and that's more "poor visualization" rather than "arriving too low", as we'll find out.]_

With the storm died down some, Kami and Readis go back to Paradise Hold with T'lion, and Gadareth has to use an underwater bugle to call the dolphins, since the pier and the bell are both essentially gone. There are hurt calves that require Healer stitching, so Readis asks T'lion to fetch Temma and bring her there to do it while Gadareth holds the dolphins steady. Temma has too many humans to come, and so does Persellan, when T'lion returns to Eastern to try and collect him.

So T'lion grabs the supplies, and Persellan's book of technique, and he and Readis try to stitch up the calves themselves. T'lion manages to get the wounds closed up, at least, with all the internal bits inside.

And then realizes he's lost the book. Cue frantic diving until Readis finally comes up with it. But it's been soaked and clearly there's ruinous damage. Readis proclaims he'll print off the requisite information from Landing, as the two try to dry out the book and preserve some of its information. They talk a little bit about how humans still will need to take care of dragons and dolphins in the post-Thread era before Jayge busts them and lays into Readis about coming to help the dolphins before making sure the humans were all safe and healing. It's apparently a bad example as a Holder to not tend to the people first.

Which, I suspect, Readis would be doing, if he were Holder. But he would probably still dispatch someone to help the dolphins if he could. T'lion essentially steps in front of Readis to take the heat by asserting that he's dolphin liason for Eastern, but his and Readis's stories tangle and Jayge finds out they're both not where they were told to go, and absent from their studies. And about the book, which everyone pretty much admits was a bad thing to take, even as Readis insists that he can get another made, and a better one. T'lion slinks off, and Readis is getting marched home to face up to the consequences of everything he's done so far with the dolphins.

> The way home was too short for Readis to prepare himself for his mother's condemnation. She'd make sure he never went to the cove again. She would certainly extract a promise from him to have nothing to do with dolphins ever again. It was a promise that Readis could not in conscience give.  
>  [Readis commits to the idea of the dolphineer, and that he's going to become one.]  
>  As badly as Readis thought his mother would react, the actual storm that followed his father's account of his son's various offenses against his Hold and against parental teaching and tolerance, his consorting with dolphins, and his absence from Landing school, brought such a tirade down on his head that he was unable to speak out in self-defense. Until she ranted that he was without conscience, loyalty, or honor in his devious and unworthy association with shipfish.

This is one of those situations that is supposed to come off as humans being the real monsters, since we've had two instances right next to each other about how dolphins, while intelligent, are lesser beings than humans and don't deserve our help or sympathy for all the help they're getting. Yet Pern has been living with intelligent animals for the entirety of its existence. Dragons and fire-lizards have been integral to the survival of the planet during every Threadfall. And yet, all the humans around dolphins seem to think of them as having the importance of pets when disaster strikes. That fits with the overarching Randian idea of Pern ("I got mine, fuck you."), but it still seems very weird that a society that depends entirely on intelligent non-humans (and their handlers), had just been relieved of their existential threat by another intelligent non-human (and its handlers) has such a callous attitude toward another non-human intelligent species. Unless they need handlers, too, before humans will respect them, which, ugh, speciesists. 

_[Of course, the audience of 21st c. Pern has had several occasions where natural disasters and weather events have left BIPOC communities shattered, while the wealthy white people in power did nothing, insisted what little scraps they could be bothered to throw were more than enough, and demanded that the people on the receiving end of those scraps be properly obsequious for them, or there wouldn't be anything more. And here, Readis is being scolded for going to help the dolphins before making sure the humans were all taken care of. Look after your own, he's being told, before helping the Other who is also part of your domain. T'lion is being told the same thing. It's a wonder there are any dolphins at all that want to work with humans. Excepting maybe T'lion and Readis's companions, and maybe Idarolan, since he's done some significant amount of work toward making dolphins welcome at his Hold. They're the only ones who have given any sort of damn about the dolphins.]_

Aramina's outburst about loyalty and honor and devious behavior also suggests there's a much greater core of feudal and filial piety going on in Hold culture than I would have thought. Matters of loyalty have, to this point, been mostly handled by violence or the threat thereof. The Harper attachment to Robinton was essentially a function of his incredible charisma. If there was supposed to be a deeper bond of loyalty present everywhere, I doubt there would be as much bribe attempts or concerns about bribes being accepted. The feudal society bolted on as a survival mechanism is still losing out to the Randian core, which suggests the whole thing is about to fly apart once Thread really is gone. Toric's plan is essentially trying to kickstart this.

Readis, however, has been presented with an opportunity to try and rules-lawyer his way out of trouble, not that it's going to work.

> "I have, too. I have never been **alone** with the dolphins or in the sea. There has always been someone else with me."  
>  "That isn't at issue..."  
>  "But it is. I promised you the day after the dolphins rescued me and Unclemi that I wouldn't go by myself to swim and I never gave. Not in ten Turns!"  
>  "But you were a child! How could you remember that?"  
>  "Mother, I remembered. I have obeyed. I have never come to harm from the dolphins..."  
>  "But you have neglected your own family and the Hold's needs at a time when we needed everyone's help, everyone's loyalty..."  
>  "The dolphins are part of Paradise River Hold," Readis began, but she slapped his face as hard as she could. He staggered back, rocked from the insecure balance of standing on the toe of one foot.  
>  For a moment there was complete silence in the room. Aramina rarely used physical punishment, and the slaps she had given her children for naughtiness had been admonitory, not punitive. She hadn't even so much as tapped his hand in rebuke since he had started at the Landing school.  
>  "Dolphins...are...not...part of this Hold!" she said fiercely, stringing out the words to emphasize her anger and denial. "I'm sure there is work to which your father can put you now. You will do it and you will never mention those wretched creatures in my presence again. Do you understand?"  
>  "Yes," Readis managed to say. "I understand." He could not at that moment call her "Mother." He turned his head to his father, awaiting orders.  
>  Jayge, whose expressionless face told Readis nothing, beckoned for Readis to follow him.

And this is a reasonably good example of why smacking/spanking doesn't work as a disciplinary measure. Making things worse, Aramina is not in any sort of mental state that would provide child-appropriate reasons why what Readis did upset her so much. "I'm upset because a disaster happened, I didn't know where you were, you were doing something I told you not to do, and I really could have used your help" is what Aramina wants to say. Unfortunately, since dolphins very clearly stand on her own triggers, Aramina may never be able to handle discipline related to those things in a child-appropriate way. And Readis's explanation that he adhered firmly to the letter of Aramina's prohibition without understanding that he clearly violated the spirit of it is only going to come across as defiance to Aramina. So Readis gets hit without understanding and told that his worldview is wrong from someone who doesn't have firsthand experience with the dolphins.

As someone who was disciplined that way, my experience says the only lesson Readis is going to learn from this is that his mother can't be told anything about dolphins, people who might report to his mother can't be trusted or told anything about dolphins, and that he needs to be much more careful about how he interacts with dolphins, so that only his trusted people can see him do it. I wouldn't be surprised at all if Readis concludes that adults in general can't be trusted with this any more, and that he's going to have to conduct any further dolphin business out of the sight of everyone.

In essence, Aramina has crushed any possibility that Readis might come to her about problems, desires, or anything else for the immediate future, and quite possibly for the long term future as well. Trauma sucks.

Readis gets put to work helping dress the unexpected amount of meat provided by having to kill animals that got severely hurt in the flooding and the storm, and when he stumbles home, he decides that he's not ready to face the family yet and sleeps in one of the barns. Which causes a miniature panic in the morning when he's not where he's supposed to be, although Readis only discovers this when he's awoken by his sister on the lookout for him. So Readis gets in trouble again.

> Later Readis would realize how strained everyone had been then, tempers and patience too stretched to allow for any tolerance, but when his mother insisted that he give his word that he would never again have anything to do with shipfish--and get use of that term as well as the tone of voice she used further inflamed him--then he, too, lost his temper.  
>  "That is a promise I cannot make!"  
>  "You will make it be abide by it," his mother told him, her eyes sparkling with anger, "or you cannot live in this hold!"  
>  "As you will," he said, cold despite the trembling in his guts. He stalked down the hall to his room where he filled a travel sack with everything he could lay his hands on.

And so, because he won't promise not to associate with dolphins, Readis leaves home, with Aramina yelling at him to get back here this instant. And that's the end of the chapter.

It's a pretty solid Menolly story here, with a child disfigured by an accident that wasn't allowed to heal properly. Although Readis's story is by ignorance and neglect rather than having an active malevolent force in his life. And Readis storms out after a fight instead of waiting for a quiet moment to get completely away. But they're both on the way to being the very first of their Craft against an environment that doesn't particularly think they're capable of doing it. We'll have to see if Readis gets rescued by a dragonrider trying to outrun Thread or not.

So many broken family dynamics on Pern. It's incredibly sad.

_[Readis gets told that he can't associate with sentients that Aramina sees as less human, as not part of Us, as a Them that is dangerous and that she blames for Readis getting hurt. And then, when he calls her bluff on forbidding him, she demands that he obey her. Despite the already clear position she's staked out that Readis has to lie and suppress himself if he wants to stay in her household. Plenty of people who have stayed closeted while they were minors or in situations where it is unsafe for them to be exactly who they are understand Readis implicitly, and recognize the bravery (and perhaps foolishness) of the decision to cut himself loose from his family in favor of being his authentic self. If Pern had anything resembling a real social safety net, Readis (and Menolly before him) would have been able to make this decision much more easily and firmly, rather than enduring a significantly greater amount of abuse from their parents because the alternative was worse. Unfortunately, since we haven't figured it out in all of the nation-states in 21st c. Terra, Pern doesn't think of it as a baseline expectation.]_


	11. Not As Dumb As You Think

Last time, Toric schemed, decided the hurricane was a good time to put his scheme into action, and expressed hatred for dolphins, Readis helped dolphins after a hurricane and got yelled at and struck by Aramina for it, prompting him to leave Paradise River rather than promise Aramina he wouldn't have anything to do with the dolphins.

**The Dolphins of Pern: Chapters XII and XIII: Content Notes:**

In grand Pern tradition, the action shifts over to K'van, at Benden, who is fully aware of all the settlements Toric has been building, and suspects that Toric intends to move on his plans soon. The Benden Weyrleader says there's not much to do regarding a Holder, but K'van points out that all these settlements are outside the boundary markers of Southern Hold as established, and he and the Benden Weyrleader exchange some knowing glances about what to observe next, as K'van describes the discreet spying being done on Toric, as well as the apparent scheme of Toric selling land he doesn't own to settlers that will then back him later when the Council comes to meet. The hurricane provided the evidence needed to confirm suspicions by exposing settlements that were previously hidden by the treeline.

Lessa is in favor of a (currently metaphorical) scorched-earth policy regarding Toric, but the Benden Weyrleader and K'van are both in favor of the idea of exposing Toric to the Council of Lord Holders and letting them handle him. Although Benden is not above using dragons to impart a lesson, one that apparently worked rather well the first time it was used on a similar situation. Lessa eventually catches on, and starts laughing, and proclaims that Robinton would be as well.

While we shift over to the return of the injured dolphins at Paradise River, those playing along at home can either research or chuckle at whatever plan Benden has in mind.

Jayge is hoping that three days is enough to get Readis to come back. Unfortunately, neither he nor Aramina is really ready to forgive Readis.

> He wished that Aramina had not been so didactic about issuing that ultimatum to Readis. Although he understood her panic, and certainly agreed with her that Readis had acted disgracefully, he also understood his son well enough to know that forcing the boy to promise against his conscience would make him rebel. The boy was of the right age to resent a mother's restrictions. Jayge earnestly hoped that the three anxious days would be enough for Readis to have made his point and make an honorable return. By this morning, Aramina had been beside herself with remorse at driving her oldest child away. Jayge doubted that she'd renew her demand that Readis stop seeing the dolphins, but he was equally certain she would never cease blaming the creatures for the trouble they'd caused her and hers.

So they're not actually ready to forgive Readis, they just want him back because they're worried he's not going to survive out there. The narrative does acknowledge Jayge and Aramina are here because they think Readis will come back to check on the dolphins, but there's no indication that they have gone looking for Readis in the time between when they decided to get their child back and this point in time. Which might have been this morning, according to that text block above. And truce would only last until the next time Readis is with the dolphins. This has the hallmarks of being the kind of family relationship between a highly anti-LGBT parent group and a kid that intends to live their life out of the closet. Running away and finding a supportive household may be the best option for everyone involved.

T'lion, T'gellan, and Persellan also arrive to check on the dolphins. T'lion has been unpersoned by Persellan in regard to having destroyed the book, for which Jayge thinks T'lion is lucky to only have been given the silent treatment (although it's really Persellan addressing the air in front of him and T'lion responding, because T'lion is the only one with firsthand knowledge of what transpired).

As Jayge waits for Readis and the dolphins arrive, we find that "Worry conflicted with a rising and righteous anger that Readis, who had always been treated with respect, would repay their kindness in this fashion!"

 _Except the part where his mother slapped him and told him to get out if he wouldn't promise her something and his father didn't intervene_.

This "ungrateful child" narrative might work better if the child didn't have damn good reasons to repay their "kindness" in such a way. There's never any real confirmation _to Readis_ that his parents love him just as much despite the injury and that they consider him a fit and fine son. It's pretty explicit that Aramina takes no interest in his dolphin fascination (because triggers) and Jayge doesn't seem to have taken any interest, either, because of Aramina's vehemence. There's no evidence on camera that we've seen to this point that Readis _has_ been treated with any respect, culminating in the slap and dismissal from a few days ago. Even now, Jayge sides with Aramina that Readis is wrong and believes himself that Readis has been out long enough to satisfy his tantrum, but he's unwilling to examine the idea that he and Aramina are going to have to budge, more than just failing to forbid Readis, if he wants a happy household and a child that feels he's been treated with respect.

They're not ready to forgive Readis and welcome him back. They want their son to _obey_. That's not a recipe for a successful family. It's a recipe for an abusive one.

Once Jayge gets a good look at the injuries on the dolphins, he admits to himself that Readis was right, and that nobody at the Hold suffered injuries as severe as the dolphins. He doesn't actually say this out loud, of course. Persellan examines both dolphins, cuts stitches and sends them on their way. One of the mothers of the injured dolphins leaves T'lion with a very pretty shell, and one of the injured dolphins gives Persellan a kiss. After seeing what the two boys used the book for, Persellan forgives T'lion for taking and ruining it.

With no Readis present, T'lion begs Jayge to ask T'gellan if he can go find Readis, although the actual request doesn't mention that part. T'gellan assents, so long as T'lion is back in time for his required copying so that Persellan gets a new book in short order. T'lion feels confident and happy to tell Readis of the news and a plan to get himself apprenticed to learn Healing so he can use it on the dolphins, but T'lion searches for a while and gets no leads. He promises Jayge and Aramina that he'll try again tomorrow, and that's where the chapter ends.

If T'lion finds Readis, and gives him the news, I'm still not sure Readis has any reason to come back. If Readis has found a place that provides shelter, he can make fire, forage, and has dolphins he can call to help with the fishing, he'll be just fine on his own (until he gets hurt). Menolly proved you could do it, so Readis has precedent. It's probably going to be up to Jayge to apologize well enough to Readis to bring him back. I'm still not sure he's in the right frame of mind to do it.

_[He isn't. Because neither Jayge nor Aramina is willing to admit that they were wrong, truly wrong, and that Readis should be able to pursue his dreams because he is not an extension of his parents, but actually his own person, independent, and capable of making decisions regarding his own fate. Which is apparently pretty fucking difficult, even for parents of 21st. c. Terra. (It shouldn't be, but it is. And super-extra-fuck-you-difficult, of course, for parents in a culture that demands conformity of thought and expression among all the members, regardless of their age.)]_

Then we jump into the next chapter. The narrative has a gun on the mantel to fire, and this is the appointed time. Just as the Benden Weyrleaders are sitting down to food, the call comes in that Toric is on the move. And in the same way that they had intimidated the attackers storming Benden all the way back in Dragonflight, the queen dragons get to intimidate the sailing ships into turning around and returning, while the bronze dragonriders transport Lords Holder to the settlements to show the evidence of Toric's ambition.

The narrative changes to Toric gloating about the profits of his enterprise and planning future settlements.

> He disliked resorting to the Ancients' names--they'd had their chance and lost it to Thread--but since Aivas had identified places by what it had in its memory, the old names for the Southern Continent had been seized upon with great enthusiasm as "a link with their heritage." Toric was not of that mind. He had the future to plan for and that was what he'd been doing while everyone else on the planet seemed to be wallowing in ancestral accomplishments and striving to reconstruct all sorts of devices. He was probably one of the few who did not regret the silence of Aivas or the demise of the old Harper--who had been a meddler of the first order.

He's right about Robinton, and if it weren't for the fact that he's a designated villain, Toric would totally work as an Ayn Rand hero, pushing forward with progress in the face of all the backward-looking traditionalists obsessed with their past.

As it is, of course, the gloating stops when he realizes there's too much noise for an empty Hold, right before the Benden Weyrleaders and a select committee of Lord Holders (Groghe, Larad, Asgenar) bid him have a look at his own front yard, where the ships and all the personnel that should have been at the settlements are crowded. Along with the rest of the Lord Holders.

Toric blusters, insinuates Groghe is going along with this because he has pen--Hold size envy, that the South is not for dragonriders to parcel out, and that this is Hold business. The leaders of the Weyrs point out that its not _in_ his Hold they're interfering, and the Benden Weyrleader promises that at the end of the pass, some twenty-two turns away, nobody will have to tithe to the Weyrs again, because they will have their own lands and halls.

Toric presses the matter of why dragonriders get to choose when places can be settled, because the Charter said everyone gets to choose their own land. To which Asgenar points out that Toric has been charging all of his settlers exorbitant prices for every part of their settlement and any other thing they had, and one of the settlers pipes in the they have not actually been able to go to their settlement sites until now.

As a conciliatory gesture, the Benden Weyrleader promises that if the people who are here to settle can "prove [their] holdings, they will be officially granted [to them,] [...] Free and clear," which elicits a cheer.

Toric's patience runs out and he charges the Benden Weyrleader to take a swing at him, which is easily dodged, and then Larad, Asgenar, and Jaxom seize Toric and cart him away for a private conference. Before the conference begins, Benden releases the settlers to go settle their lands as they had intended, but with the extra bonus of not being beholden to Toric if they don't want to be.

The conference itself is the other Lords Holder dressing Toric down about not abiding by the covenant decided, nor figuring out any way of guarding against abuse or foreknowledge of special sites. And explain to him that the reports the dragonriders have collected have been going back to the council of Holders, and that there have been no special favors asked or granted for dragonriders or sons and daughters without land, and that nobody gets to apportion land without the agreement of the dragonriders and the Holders.

Toric has one reasonable question, and it's one we've been asking since we knew the dragonriders would have an end point.

> "Is that what you'll become when you're no longer needed to char Thread? The guardians of order on Pern?" Toric glared at F'lar.  
>  "That is what some of us will certainly be doing," F'lar said equably, "when, as, and **if** "--he paused significantly--"such overseeing is needed."  
>  "And who decides the **when, as, and if** , might I ask?"  
>  "You may, and--"  
>  "There will be guidelines for that, too," Larad interrupted.  
>  "Which **we** ," Groghe said, "in the Council will decide and refer to the special Gathers that will let everyone, Hold, Hall, and dragonrider, have a vote on the matter. Or will you absent yourself from that meeting as well?"

So the dragonriders will be the police force of Pern in the future, although it's a remarkably democratic method of determining the guidelines for their use. For a moment, I wondered if Pern were going to go the way of mass democracy, but apparently not.

_[That said, if there's one piece of culture that should have survived all of this trek forward to remain in its mostly undiluted form, it should be All Cops Are Bastards. Because from colony to the end of the Ninth Pass, we have more than enough examples of people with the power to police and the power to call the police abusing that power to enrich themselves and get their opponents jailed, Shunned, or otherwise hurt. Having the dragonriders around as a police force that can be called out at the request of the wealthy crafters, feudal Lords, and themselves doesn't mean anything more than that there will be more terrorizing of the peasantry and probably attempting to oppress them further, even as they no longer need to engage in the vassalage feudalism that bought their protection. There's going to be some pretty vicious repression in post-Thread Pern, and one can only hope that the peasantry is able to successfully overthrow the entire system and set up a better, more community-oriented, socialist paradise out of this Randian hellscape.]_

After Toric receives his final warning about sticking to his own lands and not trying to make himself bigger by sneaky annexation, with R'mart indicating that Toric doesn't want to know what the penalties will be if he violates those prohibitions, K'van delivers the stinger.

> " **K'van!** Toric bellowed, and when the young Weyrleader turned in the doorway to face him, Toric raised his fist. "If I see a single one of your riders **anywhere** near this Hold..."  
>  "Ah, but you see, you won't, Lord Toric," K'van said with a soft smile. "But then you have been too busy to notice that the Weyr is empty and we have settled in a much more congenial location, heretofore unoccupied."  
>  "With the full consent of the council of Lord Holders," Larad added. "Good day, Toric of Southern Hold."

And that's the end of the chapter, with supposedly another humiliation dealt to Toric. Of course, that's not likely to stop him, as none of the other ones have, either. In theory, all of his new neighbors should help keep him in check, but it's probably going to have to be the demonstrated willingness of the dragonriders to physically put him in his place before he'll actually give in.


	12. No Plan Survives Contact With Reality

Last time, everyone expected Readis to show, but when he didn't, only T'lion made a concrete effort to find him, and Toric was chastised for his plans before his settlers were allowed to go settle, but without any being beholden to Toric for the privilege. With an unstated threat left in the balance and the Southern Weyr relocated, everyone believes Toric is no longer a threat. We know better, but Toric isn't likely to rear his head again in this book.

Which means there's only one loose thread to tie up before we finish - how is Readis doing on his own?

**The Dolphins of Pern: Chapter XIV and Epilogue: Content Notes: None**

Readis continues in his Menolly pathway, having to spend a Threadfall under cover that's barely adequate, before finding a cove cave system that has the right attributes for both humans and dolphins to coexist. Readis's impulsiveness has left him without several useful tools and items, and without making amends to Persellan and telling T'lion where he was and seeing if he was okay for his role in the book destruction.

And he has no bell to attract dolphins, even if the place would be perfect for it.

Such concerns are pushed from his mind in the more immediate concerns of finding for and making tools that will allow for sleep and getting food. Readis goes searching for fire lizard clutches when he's not making tools, as having a fire-lizard is essentially having a link back to everyone else, but no luck there. He does manage to fashion himself a flotation vest and test it out before taking a nice long swim out.

And even with no bell, a dolphin finds him. And tells him all the pods are looking for him, once they're properly introduced. Readis asks the dolphin not to say that they've found him, but in saying he wants to be a dolphineer, Readis finds out that the other dolphins have been summoned anyway. They're all very excited at the prospect of dolphineers, nearly swamping Readis in their exuberance.

Readis insists he doesn't want to be found by humans, but also leads the dolphins back to his idea of where the Dolphineer Hall could be. Well, more hangs on while the dolphins escort him in. Who then comment about his "horsss", the runnerbeast, and approve of his choice of place. They also mention the general 1:1 ratio of dolphins to dolphineers in the past.

And then ask him a necessary question.

> "How people know to be dolphineers if no one knows who you are?" Delfi asked.  
>  If Readis had needed any confirmation of how intelligent dolphins were, that remark certainly clinched it.  
>  "Well now, you have a point, Delfi," he said, settling more comfortably on the ledge, his feet dangling. "Just tell folks that there is now a dolphineer and a dolphin crafthall." Readis wasn't exactly certain how one established a crafthall, but Master Benelek had and so had Master Hamian, when he decided to specialize in the plastic materials the Ancients had made so much use of. Someone had to start someplace, sometime, and for a good reason. He believed he had one; the care of the dolphins who had been neglected by humans for so long in their struggle to survive Threadfall

It's as good a reasoning as any, as it's not like there's a regulatory authority that permits and licenses new Crafts. _[There is the bit in an earlier book where the Harpers and the Smiths said that they were basically creating spin-offs of themselves, so in theory the Dolphincraft would probably be allied with either the Fishercraft or the Beastcraft and spin off from that. So if Idarolan is on board with creating a Dolphincraft, it probably is allowed to exist.]_ The council of Craftmasters might want to have a vote in the matter as to whether to let Readis establish himself in such a way, but odds are that Readis will never hear about it until well after he's already well-established.

After figuring out that the dolphins essentially go wherever there's a bell, Readis remembers he has no bell, and after a discussion among themselves, the dolphins promise to come back with one tomorrow.

Which they do - although the bell is missing a clapper and needs a lot of work done to take off rust and accumulated years of disuse before it will be serviceable. Which Readis gets to, making a clapper and scraping off all the grime caked on over the course of the next two days, earning a lot of scraped and swollen knuckles before getting everything hung, including a bell pull for the dolphins to use from the water.

He rings in a Come-in sequence and then finds there's basically the pod right there, and they have great fun ringing the bell, even if it threatens to deafen Readis and completely spooks his runner. Definitely an outside bell. The dolphins are enthusiastic and tell him he needs flippers, a mask, and a tank so that he can go long distance with the pod. Which sobers Readis up about his missing possessions very far away from where he was. But even then, the dolphins say they'll keep him safe and take him out on expeditions, where they keep him fed and watered and give him the things they recover from sunken ships.

They're also pretty good with the humor.

> "We find. We bring. You fix. You ring." Loki said. He identified her by the splotch on the side of her melon.  
>  "Loki! You're a poet! Did you know that?" Readis exclaimed.  
>  "Yes. I poet. I know it. See?"

Some jokes are apparently timeless.

_[When we get to the next author, there will be plenty of poetry fragments at the beginnings of chapters. Most of them have about the same quality as this one here. A taste of what is to come, or something.]_

Eventually Readis puts his horse/runner outside to give him some range. Unfortunately, that means waking up one morning to find one of the large cats has made a meal of it. Eventually Readis starts another garden in the space where the pasture was. And life continues, until a single dolphin rings his bell to get a bloodfish off.

What should tip Readis off is that this dolphin doesn't have any of the Silly Animal speech pattern. And that she has a name that's the same as one of the original dolphins. But the pieces don't come together for Readis that he's talking to the Tillek, even though he compliments her speech and she tells him about all the other dolphineers at Monaco Bay, Paradise River, and so on. Instead, it crushes Readis's hope that he's going to be the very first dolphineer. And also, he's nearly eighteen. Which means this interim has been about, what, seven Turns without anyone really noticing the passage of time? Or being told?

_[Because it's worth noting, continuing in the vein of dolphins being BIPOC, the one with the most recognizable speech pattern as the leader? It's like the author decided that the one who would get all the compliments for being "articulate" was actually the person to put in charge, instead of being the one who the humans would be most comfortable with and respect the most for appearing intelligent. By mimicking their speech patters. It's a thing for BIPOC to have to mimic whiteness to be able to get ahead or get respect in white society, so yeah. All the way through, the author has provided us with a well-rendered, if patently unintentional, representation of what it's like to be someone who isn't white in a white world.]_

Readis immediately readjusts his goals to possibly having himself turned into a proper Holder with his land, even as Theresa asks to swim with him, and then thumps him into the water to emphasize it's not actually a request.

So Readis swims with Theresa, without his vest, right out toward the Great Western Current, but he is shielded from the fact that Idarolan and Alemi's ships are out there by Theresa's body. Once he sees those ships, Readis realizes that he's been had, that Theresa is the Tillek, and that he's being escorted to a gathering of the dolphineers. Who also have in their company his family, several Weyrleaders, Master Samvel, Masters Menolly and Sebell, Alemi, and Idarolan.

> "Well, Readis, lad," Master Idarolan said, planting his hands on his hips and grinning at him. "Led us a fine and merry chase you have, lad."  
>  "I wanted to help the dolphins," Readis said, speaking to his father despite the press of other important people around him. "No one else was."  
>  Jayge took Readis's arm and pressed it affectionately, his expression wistful. "We know that now, son. And I honor you for what you did that day, despite what I said, and felt, at the time."  
>  "I should have never said what I did," Aramina murmured right beside him, and there were tears in her eyes when he looked around at her.

Ah, there we go. It took a few years, but Jayge and Aramina are ready to apologize and understand. I feel very cheated, though, that we didn't get to see what happened that caused the breakthrough. A perfectly good moment of character development, that could have been accompanied by an actual serious search for Readis, would have been nice. But as things are, and because the narrative has always been steadfast at avoiding the parts that would be the most interesting to see, we stayed with Readis, oblivious to the changes going on around him. Clearly a lot has changed while he was away, and yet we get to see none of it, instead we have to accept the new world and deduce what we can from it.

And speaking of the new world, Readis is actually here because the Tillek has formally requested the creation of a Dolphincrafthall and wants Readis installed as the Dolphineer, Craftmaster of the Dolphincraft.

But he needs some soup and klah to warm up first, and there's plenty of new clothes and other things destined for him and his Hold (Kahrain, because that was the name the Ancients had for it and Readis hasn't given it another name) to fix it up properly and build in the Dolphincrafthall. It turns out Readis was found out because T'lion flew over the seaside caves and knew it would be perfect for dolphins, and so they've known he was there for a few sevendays.

The actual chain of events ends up being that the pod of Paradise River were upset when Readis left, so they and the Eastern pods asked around and got nothing. They then asked the Tillek to talk to Idarolan about when dolphineers were coming back. Who told Oterel, who talked to T'bor, who relayed it to Menolly and Sebell. Menolly and Sebell learned about the disappearance from Alemi and forwarded all their knowledge on to the Benden Weyrleaders. They remembered a fragment from Robinton, so they consulted D'ram, who knew the right videos from AIVAS to view. Armed with that data, the Tillek went to Paradise River to ask Jayge and Aramina.

> "She asked us," Jayge said, looking slightly embarrassed while Aramina ducked her head and nervously twitched the hem of her tunic, one of her Gather tunics, Readis now noticed, "if we objected to your becoming a dolphineer."  
>  Readis waited.  
>  "It is an honor to be asked," his mother said softly, hesitantly, before raising her head to look him straight in the eye. "I was once asked to accept an honor"--she shot Lessa a quick glance--"and could not. I cannot stand in your way, Readis."

Oh, dear Aramina. That had to have been psychologically horrible for you, and somehow I don't think it's helped you with your own trauma all that much. I wonder whether it might be a good thing for Aramina to stand on a Hatching Ground as a candidate now, to go through with what she didn't want to before. It's not likely, especially in the era of dying Thread, that Aramina would Impress, but it might be good for her at this juncture to get exposure therapy. _[Because if it isn't clear by now, Pern needs therapists, and also Aramina's actions and attitudes, rooted in her own traumas, drove her son away completely.]_

As things are, though, Readis is to be instructed by the Tillek and have his Dolphineer exams administered by her until he can ascend to the role requested of him. And coming (and removing the bloodfish from her, which was situated very close to her genitals) indicated he passed the entrance exam. _[That sounds much like the Tillek specifically got a bloodfish attached to her in an inconvenient place, having confidence that Readis would be able to get it off. Or that Theresa figured she was basically done with reproducing and didn't mind much if Readis turned out not to be as skilled as she thought. I can't imagine this sort of thing being accidental and turned into a useful exercise, because I doubt you get to be the Tillek by getting bloodfish attached to you in compromising places.]_

The dolphins sing to announce the return of the Tillek, who calls Readis in to swim with them. The sailors say they'll drop off the supplies at his cave.

> "We're proud of you, son," his father said just as Readis arched himself into a dive over the railing and into the sea, carefully assuming at the space left free for him by the dolphins waiting there.

And that's the closure that Menolly never got, nor Alemi, really, to know that her parents approved and were proud. Because Yanus doesn't. And he's a jerk.

The epilogue has the remaining humans discuss the increased pace of life with the reintroduction of technology, and the realization of what the lonely sounds they had been hearing all this time were. Everyone toasts the future without Thread, and the book comes to a close.

It's a good last chapter, and brings to a close one of the things that had been forgotten from the beginnings. There's still a little clock to be run out on Thread, and possibly at least one book to be written in the Post-Thread era, because the social upheaval that comes with the ability to be always out on the surface of the planet will be huge.

Instead, though, we end up spinning backward in time _all the way back to the Second Pass_ to possibly retell a story of people who forgot they had Thread to deal with. So next time, we look out for a Red Star Rising through a Dragonseye.

Which title should I use for it? _[Ultimately, went with Dragonseye, but the nice thing about doing the Director's Cut is that you don't have to be so limited if you don't want to be.]_


End file.
